Brief Fact Summary. Debra Muhammad and her husband, Robert, lived at an Islamic University that enforced strict religious rules on all aspects of Debra’s life. Debra was granted a divorce on the ground of habitual cruel and inhuman treatment.
Synopsis of Rule of Law. A divorce on the ground of habitual cruel and inhuman treatment can be granted when there is conduct endangering life, limb, or health, or creating reasonable apprehension of danger, or unnatural and infamous conduct making the marital relation revolting.
And finally, such conduct must be habitual, that is, done so often, or continued so long, that its recurrence may be reasonably expected whenever occasion or opportunity presents itself.
View Full Point of LawIssue. Was the chancellor correct in granting Debra a divorce on the ground of habitual cruel and inhuman treatment?
Held. The chancellor’s determination that Debra’s case warranted a divorce was not manifestly wrong when her spouse’s actions caused a deep personal misery that had no foreseeable end.
This Court has defined cruel and inhuman treatment as conduct endangering life, limb, or health, or creating reasonable apprehension of danger, or unnatural and infamous conduct making the marital relation revolting.
Although the most common scenario for such claims is overt physical or verbal actions of a harsh and continuing nature, he harm need not derive from physical attack by the offending spouse. The main consideration is the intolerableness of the plight created for the nonoffending spouse. Although Debra only testified to one incident of physical force on behalf of her husband, life at the University relegated her to a status and set of living conditions that many would consider unbearable. Furthermore, her mother indicated that Debra was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from her experiences there.
Dissent. There was no testimony that Debra was ever in reasonable apprehension of danger to life, limb, or health. Her complaints were with her living conditions, not her husband. There was only one instance of physical abuse, and Debra wan not without fault in this instance.
Discussion. Generally habitual cruel and inhuman treatment manifests itself in repeated physical or mental abuse by the spouse. In this case the Court found that the conditions Debra was forced to live in to be with her husband were sufficient to make a valid claim.