Title: Maddox v. Maddox

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

160 So. 2d 481 (1964)
Dixie Mae MADDOX
v.
L. G. MADDOX.
4 Div. 175.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
January 30, 1964.
Joe S. Pittman and Kenneth T. Fuller, Enterprise, for appellant.
W. R. Martin, Ozark, for appellee.
GOODWYN, Justice.
Appellant (wife) filed a bill for divorce against appellee (husband) grounded on cruelty. There were also prayers for alimony pendente lite, permanent alimony, a solicitor's fee, and for a reference before the register to fix the amount of alimony pendente lite. The reference was held as prayed for. The register's report, providing for payment by the husband of $20 per week and a solicitor's fee of $60, was confirmed.
The husband answered the bill and also filed a cross-bill seeking a divorce in his favor on the ground of the wife's voluntary abandonment.
After an oral hearing of the evidence on the bill and cross-bill, the trial court rendered a decree granting a divorce in favor *482 of the wife and awarding her permanent alimony.
When the divorce decree was rendered the husband was in arrears in payments of temporary alimony in an amount totalling $500.
The divorce decree awarded the wife 40 acres of land on which the parties' home was located (the husband owned a total of 130 acres) and also ordered the husband to pay her $10 per week as support and the sum of $200 for her attorney.
The divorce decree contains this provision: "All rights and obligations under the pendente lite order of this court are terminated."
The wife brings this appeal from said final decree and here insists that the court erred in not awarding her more than $10 per week as support and in relieving the husband of paying the $500 due under the pendente lite order.
The amount of alimony is a matter addressed to the trial court's discretion (Code 1940, Tit. 34, § 31) as the circumstances of the case may justify (Code 1940, Tit. 34, § 32), and will not be revised on appeal in the absence of an abuse of discretion. We find no abuse of discretion here. Aside from any other consideration, we are impressed, from an examination of the evidence, that the trial court could have found that the wife was not blameless in bringing on the parties' marital difficulties, which circumstance could well have been considered as a measure palliating the husband's conduct and as abridging her claim to an allowance for alimony. See: Pope v. Pope, 268 Ala. 513, 515, 109 So. 2d 521; McGregor v. McGregor, 257 Ala. 232, 58 So. 2d 457. It could be that the trial court, in fixing the amount of weekly payments at $10 instead of the $20 per week allowed as temporary alimony, did so under the foregoing rule. Also, it is of note that the wife was given the 40-acre home place. We find no basis for holding that the trial court abused its discretion in not awarding the wife more than $10 per week as permanent alimony.
We come now to the question whether there was error in relieving the husband of paying the $500 due under the award of temporary alimony. Specifically, the question is whether alimony pendente lite ordered to be paid by the husband to the wife in a divorce proceeding, and accruing prior to rendition of a final decree of divorce in such proceeding, becomes vested in the wife so as to deny authority in the trial court to terminate such accrued alimony on rendition of the final decree.
We find no Alabama case dealing with this precise question. In other jurisdictions, there is a division of authority. See: 17 Am.Jur., Divorce and Separation, § 616, p. 696; 27A C.J.S. Divorce § 210b(4), p. 923; 42 C.J.S. Husband and Wife § 619e, p. 234; Anno: "Final decree or dismissal of suit for divorce as affecting subsequent enforceability by contempt or otherwise of past defaults in payment of temporary alimony", 154 A.L.R. 530.
After due consideration of the authorities on both sides of the question, we prefer to follow, on the basis of being the better reasoned, those cases holding that, since an order allowing alimony pendente lite is purely interlocutory in nature (as held in Ex parte Hyatt, 254 Ala. 359, 360, 48 So. 2d 329; Ex parte Cairns, 209 Ala. 358, 360, 96 So. 246; Rickerson v. Rickerson, 203 Ala. 203, 82 So. 453; Ex parte Jones, 172 Ala. 186, 188, 55 So. 491), a final decree of divorce has the effect of rendering unenforceable the right to accrued installments of alimony pendente lite, unless the right to such installments are saved by said final decree. See: Walter v. Walter, 15 App.D. C. 333; Duss v. Duss, 92 Fla. 1081, 111 So. 382, 385-386; Trutnau v. Trutnau, 221 Minn. 462, 22 N.W.2d 321; Richardson v. Richardson, 218 Minn. 42, 15 N.W.2d 127, 154 A.L.R. 526; Woods v. Woods, 236 Mo. App. 855, 159 S.W.2d 320; Lief v. Lief, 14 N.J.Misc. 27, 178 A. 762. From Duss v. *483 Duss, supra, is the following discussion of the principle, viz.:
From Trutnau v. Trutnau, supra, is the following:
While, as already noted, we find no Alabama case dealing with the precise question here presented, we think what was said in Atkinson v. Atkinson, 233 Ala. 125, 127-128, 170 So. 198, lends support to our holding. Involved in that case was the question as to the effect of a divorce decree on a wife's right to installments under a decree for her separate maintenance which had matured before the divorce decree was rendered. It was held that, "on sound principle, a court of equity in a proceeding to enforce such decree may and should consider all equities arising since the rendition of same, and determine on principles of justice and equity what, if anything, the husband should be required to pay." As a prelude to this holding, the court had this to say:
*485 There appears no basis for allowance of an additional attorney's fee on this appeal, as requested by appellant.
The decree appealed from is due to be affirmed.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and COLEMAN, JJ., concur.