Case ID: so2d_236/html/0270-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "LeSUEUR, Judge. REDMANN, Judge", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Dora HURWITZ, Wife of Sidney K. STEINFELD v. Sidney K. STEINFELD.
    No. 3835.
    Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
    June 1, 1970.
    
      Roos & Roos, Leo S. Roos, New Orleans, for plaintiff-appellee.
    Polack, Rosenberg & Rittenberg, Leon H. Rittenberg, Jr., New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.
    Before SAMUEL, REDMANN and Le-SUEUR, JJ.
   LeSUEUR, Judge.

Defendant has appealed from a decree requiring that he maintain the premises in which his estranged wife was then residing and that he pay alimony to her in the sum of $1,200.00 per month.

The thrust of this appeal is somewhat unusual. The defendant’s primary complaint is that both phases of the judgment are vague in that each fails to provide for the unknown contingencies of life, such as a breakdown in one of the primary systems in the house (i. e., the airconditioning) or a fluctuation in his income which is significantly predicated upon oil royalties. These problems always exist and no judgment will ever fix the entire range of eventualities within its terms.

It is for this reason that alimony decrees remain interlocutory, a provision which the defendant overlooks. Should any of the contingencies which he fears come to pass, then he may, in each instance, resort to the trial court for an appropriate modification, as may his wife. Until that time, any action by this court would be advisory and inappropriate.

Any of the difficulties which defendant fears resulting from the injunction against mutual molestation, interference or disturbance would fall within the same rule.

For the above reasons, the judgment appealed is affirmed.

Affirmed.

REDMANN, Judge

(concurring).

The judgment appealed from awarded $1,200 monthly alimony pendente lite and obliged the husband to pay for “maintenance” of the house where the wife then resided, which was his separate property.

By the time of this appeal it is conceded the wife no longer resides in that house, and the husband does not allege any unusual item of maintenance he has paid for which he might seek credit in a final accounting. On that issue I believe the appeal has become moot.

On quantum, plaintiff objects that mineral income is not true income but a realization of capital. Nevertheless it was used for living purposes and set the wife’s accustomed style of living. And the husband’s “income” is a factor only in permanent alimony, LSA-C.C. art. 160; his “means” is the factor in alimony pendente lite, art. 148.

On the question of injunction against annoying one another, there is no evidence whatsoever in the record. I am confident that no such injunction would have been issued by the trial judge unless, as the wife’s counsel insists, it was done with the consent of the parties. In any case, the husband in brief observes he is really not concerned with this aspect of the judgment appealed from.