Opinion
03-09-1922
YOUNG v. YOUNG.
Bill for divorce by Ida Young against Max Young. On petitioner's exceptions to master's report. Decree for petitioner advised. Edward A. Schilling, of Newark, for exceptant.
Bill for divorce by Ida Young against Max Young. On petitioner's exceptions to master's report. Decree for petitioner advised.
Edward A. Schilling, of Newark, for exceptant.
BACKES, V. C. The master to whom this undefended divorce suit was referred has reported adversely on the ground that the petitioner's testimony as to the marriage and the desertion is uncorroborated. According to the petitioner's story she was married to the defendant in Vienna, Austria, March 19, 1911, and they came to this country shortly afterwards, settling in Newark. A baby was born to them. In May, 1913, she returned to Europe with the baby. Her husband was to follow, but changed his mind and recalled her. She arrived here in October. He deserted her a month later, taking the baby to Europe. They had been out for a walk of a Sunday afternoon, with the baby in its carriage, and when they got back home he sent her to fetch the baby's food from their fourth or fifth floor apartment. When she returned to the street, five or six minutes later, the carriage was empty and the husband and baby gone. She searched among their friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood without success. Next day she caused a criminal warrant to be issued for his arrest for desertion, and with a police sergeant, watched the outgoing steamships at Hoboken. Six weeks later she received a postal card from him from Europe with greetings from the baby and him. She has had no reply to her letters nor any other word from him since.
This narrative contains all the elements of a willful and obstinate desertion, and more, a villainous one, and entitles the petitioner to a divorce, if corroborated. As to that I have no trouble. The petitioner's testimony of the marriage is not supported by attending witnesses, but a neighbor of the couple with whom they were on intimate terms of friendship, and in whose care the defendant addressed the postal card just mentioned, says that they held themselves out, lived together and conducted themselves as husband and wife—and that they had a baby—all quite persuasive that the alliance was lawful. As to the desertion this same neighbor testifies to the disappearance of the husband and baby in November, 1913, and their absence ever since; the distraction of the abandoned wife the night of the desertion and kidnapping, immediately after the happening; that the petitioner has since been alone, without husband or baby; the coming of the post card announcing their arrival in Europe; and to many other incidents, all bearing out the petitioner's sorrowful story. Then the detective of the Newark police force testified to the issuing of the warrant on the wife's complaint upon theadvice of the district attorney, and he relates his efforts, and those of the wife, to intercept the fugitive husband at the steamship pier. This evidence, supporting, as it does, vital points in the petitioner's testimony, is because of that very thing, corroborative of the rest of the testimony not touched by the witnesses, and as to which she stands alone. The rule of corroboration does not require categorical corroboration. The rule is satisfied if the attending proof satisfies the Chancellor that the petitioner's testimony on the whole is true. Meek v. Meek, 92 N. J. Eq. 23, 112 A. 409.
The evidence meets the requirements and I will advise a decree for divorce.