Hedderson v. Hedderson

Citations

• 35 Pa. Super. 629
• 1908 Pa. Super. LEXIS 94

Syllabus

<p>Divorce — Desertion—Malice—Presumption—Evidence,</p> <p>A desertion without consent and without sufficient legal cause is presumed to be willful and malicious, and when a wife so leaves her husband, and for a period of two years refuses to return, she is guilty of such desertion as will entitle him to a divorce.</p> <p>On the trial of a libel for divorce by a husband on the ground of desertion, the husband is a competent witness, and his testimony is to be received, and is sufficient to establish the facts contained therein when not in themselves contradictory, or contradicted by other testimony.</p> <p>Where the husband’s testimony as to desertion is supported by that of a disinterested witness, the master is not justified in treating the husband’s testimony with suspicion and refusing a divorce merely because the husband had previously failed in a similar proceeding, the record of which is not in evidence, and because the desertion had been preceded by a quarrel over a boarder.</p> <p>The conclusive character of a report of a master and the confirmation thereof by the court does not prevail in divorce cases.</p>