Title: Zundel v. Zundel

State: north-dakota

Issuer: North Dakota Supreme Court

Document:

146 N.W.2d 903 (1966) Luella M. ZUNDEL, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joe M. ZUNDEL, Defendant and Appellant. No. 8353. Supreme Court of North Dakota. December 8, 1966. Lyle Huseby, Fargo, for appellant. Mackenzie & Jungroth, Jamestown, for respondent. ERICKSTAD, Judge. At the time of the oral argument in the case of Zundel v. Zundel, N.D., 146 N.W.2d 896, a decision rendered by this court on November 21, 1966, the motion of the plaintiff, Luella M. Zundel, for allowance of attorney's fees on appeal to the Supreme Court was also heard. The pertinent part of the motion reads as follows: The material part of the affidavit in support of the motion reads as follows: This motion was resisted by the defendant, Joe M. Zundel; and in support of this resistance, his counsel filed an affidavit, the material part of which reads as follows: No brief was filed in support of the motion or in resistance to it. In an application for the allowance of attorney's fees in a divorce action, we are governed by § 14-05-23, N.D.C.C. In a decision rendered by this court in 1966, in a case in which the trial court had awarded $1,500 in attorney's fees for legal services leading up to and culminating in a divorce judgment, the attorney for the appellant, in support of his contention that § 14-05-23 limits an award for attorney's fees to money necessary to prosecute or defend the action, argued that inasmuch as the plaintiff had received in the judgment cash, bonds, and land, she had assets more than adequate to pay her own attorney's fees. In response to that argument we said: *905 On rehearing in that case it was asserted by the defendant-appellant that the plaintiff had $1,300 in government bonds at the time she applied for attorney's fees and that therefore an award at that time was not required. In response to this argument we said: It is significant that in spite of the vigorous dissent filed by one of the judges of this court and his reference to a number of earlier decisions of this court on this matter, the majority concluded that there was no showing of an abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court in granting the attorney's fees under those circumstances. In the instant case the motion relates to the allowance of attorney's fees for services rendered in connection with an appeal from the lower court to the Supreme Court. As no application was made to the lower court for the allowance of such fees, we have no decision of the lower court to review. In Bryant v. Bryant, 102 N.W.2d 800 (N.D.1960), this court said that under § 14-0523, N.D.R.C. of 1943, which is § 14-05-23, N.D.C.C., this court and the trial court from which the appeal is taken in a divorce action have concurrent original jurisdiction to award moneys necessary to prosecute or defend an appeal. The burden of showing that an allowance of attorney's fees is necessary to defend an appeal in a divorce action is upon the party seeking the allowance of the fees. Pedreira v. Pedreira, 32 Cal. App. 711, 164 P. 30, 33. Our statute on the allowance of attorney's fees in divorce matters is derived from § 137 of the California Civil Code. Although California has now amended its statute so that it is broader than it was, under the statute as it existed when it contained provisions very similar to our present statute, the California courts were quite liberal in ascertaining necessity. In Larsen v. Larsen, a California decision rendered in 1951, the District Court of Appeal said: In a 1929 decision of the District Court of Appeal of California, the court, in quoting from a previous California decision, said: In a decision rendered in California in 1933 the District Court of Appeal held that the fact that the defendant in a divorce action offered to the plaintiff the privilege of accepting $2,000 awarded to her without thereby depriving her of her right to prosecute an appeal from the unfavorable portion of the property judgment did not render the $2,000 available for carrying on the plaintiff's appeal so as to preclude the court from allowing attorney's fees and costs for prosecuting the appeal. In that case the court said: Here the record is completely devoid of information upon which we could make a determination of the necessity for the allowance of attorney's fees for the defense of this appeal. The record as to necessity relates only to the conditions existing at the time of the trial and prior thereto. It does not indicate whether the plaintiff was in need of money to defend the appeal. Notwithstanding the quoted decisions and not because the plaintiff had available to her $21,800 as part payment of the judgment, but because there has been a failure on the part of the plaintiff to make an adequate showing in this court of necessity, we must deny the motion for attorney's fees on appeal. TEIGEN, C.J., and STRUTZ, MURRAY and KNUDSON, JJ., concur.