Case ID: ala_10/html/0527-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "ORMOND, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

HILL v. HILL.
    1. A bill filed for a divorce upon the ground of cruelty, must state the facts which constitute such cruelty. But this can only be taken advantage of by assigning it as cause of special demurrer.
    3. A supplemental bill, is a continuation of Hie original bill, and will not sustain the original bill by the allegations of facts, which did not exist until after the original bill was filed.
    Writ of Error to the Chancery Court of Sumter.
    Bill for a divorce by the plaintiff in error. The bill seeks a divorce a mensa et thoro, and charges that the defendant was violent, and disorderly in her conduct, “ until at length her life was one continued practice of extreme cruelty, upon your orator and his children.” It further charges that she has left his house, and gone to the State of Mississippi.
    Subsequently, a supplemental bill was filed, charging a voluntary abandonment by the wife, for the space of three years, and praying a divorce a vinculo.
    
    
      The defendant answered the bill, denying all the charges contained in it, alledging, that the complainant drove her from his house, and retorting on him the charge of cruelty. The answer contains a demurrer.
    The chancellor dismissed the bill.
    Inge, for plaintiff in error.
    Smith, contra.
   ORMOND, J.

The original bill is defective, in not stating in what the cruelty complained of, consisted. As it is stated in the bill, it is a conclusion from' facts, which are not set forth, and cannot therefore be answered. But this objection to the bill, is waived by omitting to state it as a cause of demurrer ; the general demurrer in the answer, merely goes to the equity of the bill. The answer of the defendant fully denies all the equity of the bill, and independent of this, the decree of the chancellor dismissing it was correct, as there was no evidence sustaining it.

The supplemental bill is not sufficient, as the cause for filing it did not exist when the original bill was filed. A supplemental bill, is merely a continuation of the original bill, rendered necessary by a change of the parties, or the happening of some event since the institution of the suit. [Bowie v. Minter, 2 Ala. 411.] If this is now to be considered as a bill for a dissolution from the bonds of matrimony, for the abandonment of the wife, it was commenced too soon, as the cause did not exist at that time. This defect can not be cured by a supplemental bill, which although in its effects the commencement of a new suit, rests for support on the original bill, of which it is a continuation.

Let the decree of the chancellor be confirmed.