Case Name: Diana Smith WHIPPLE v. Keith M. WHIPPLE
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1982-06-29
Citations: 424 So. 2d 263
Docket Number: No. 14940
Parties: Diana Smith WHIPPLE v. Keith M. WHIPPLE.
Judges: Before COVINGTON, COLE and WATKINS, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 424
Pages: 263–268

Head Matter:
Diana Smith WHIPPLE v. Keith M. WHIPPLE.
No. 14940.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.
June 29, 1982.
On Rehearing Dec. 9, 1982.
Writ Denied Feb. 4, 1983.
Alan Fishbein, Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-appellee Diane Smith Whipple.
Dennis R. Whalen, Baton Rouge, and Ernest A. Kelly, Houma, for defendant-appellant Keith M. Whipple.
Before COVINGTON, COLE and WATKINS, JJ.

Opinion:
COLE, Judge.
This is an appeal from a judgment fixing the amount of alimony pendente lite payable by the husband, Keith Whipple, to his wife, Diana Smith Whipple, in the sum of $1,500.00 per month, due in equal install ments on the first and fifteenth of the month. The husband appealed. We affirm.
The parties were married in 1978. Both had been married before. No children were born of the marriage. The husband, who is a practicing lawyer, earns between $3,000.00 and $4,000.00 per month, which amounts the trial court averaged at $3,700.00 per month.
The parties lived in a 5,000 square foot house (the air conditioned space) with a swimming pool and went on several trips that were rather expensive. Also, the husband gave the wife a Mercedes-Benz automobile and considerable jewelry.
The sole issue presented in this case is the correctness of the trial court's determination that the earning capacity of the wife is immaterial in fixing the amount of alimony pendente lite. The trial court refused to admit testimony concerning the wife's earning capacity.
Counsel for appellant urges that the holding of this court in Smith v. Smith, 382 So.2d 972 (La.App. 1st Cir.1980), which ruled that the wife's earning capacity was material in fixing the amount of alimony pendente lite, is controlling. However, Smith was decided on the basis of LSA-C.C. art. 119, art. 148 being held to be unconstitutional in the form in which it existed at the time the judgment of the trial court was signed (May 15, 1979). Art. 148, before amendment, required the husband to pay alimony pendente lite, but not the wife, and it was thus held in Smith to be gender based and, hence, unconstitutional. Cf. Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268, 99 S.Ct. 1102, 59 L.Ed.2d 306 (1979); Lovell v. Lovell, 378 So.2d 418 (La.1979).
We must decide the present case on the basis of art. 148 as it now stands, not as it stood at the time of the trial court's judgment in Smith. Art. 148, which provides for alimony pending separation or divorce (alimony pendente lite) now reads as follows:
"If the spouse has not a sufficient income for maintenance pending suit for separation from bed and board or for divorce, the judge may allow the claimant spouse, whether plaintiff or defendant, a sum for that spouse's support, proportioned to the needs of the claimant spouse and the means of the other spouse."
Art. 160 of the Civil Code, which constitutes the Codal authority for the award of alimony after divorce (permanent alimony) now reads as follows:
"When a spouse has not been at fault and has not sufficient means for support, the court may allow that spouse, out of the property and earnings of the other spouse, alimony which shall not exceed one-third of his or her income. Alimony shall not be denied on the ground that one spouse obtained a valid divorce from the other spouse in a court of another state or country which had no jurisdiction over the person of the claimant spouse. In determining the entitlement and amount of alimony after divorce, the court shall consider the income, means, and assets of the spouses; the liquidity of such assets; the financial obligations of the spouses, including their earning capacity, the effect of custody of children of the marriage upon the spouse's earning capacity; the time necessary for the recipient to acquire appropriate education, training, or employment; the health and age of the parties and their obligations to support or care for dependent children; any other circumstances that the court deems relevant.
In determining whether the claimant spouse is entitled to alimony, the court shall consider his or her earning capability, in light of all other circumstances.
This alimony shall be revoked if it becomes unnecessary and terminates if the spouse to whom it has been awarded remarries."
Both articles, 148 and 160, were amended by the legislature into their present forms by the same Act, Act 72 of 1979. It will be noted that while earning capacity of both spouses is to be considered in fixing permanent alimony, no such determinative factor was legislatively provided for fixing alimo ny pendente lite. As was correctly stated in Arrendell v. Arrendell, 390 So.2d 927 (La.App. 2d C6r.1980), the facts that earning capacities of both spouses were not given as factors to be considered in fixing alimony pendente lite while they are specifically given as factors to be considered in fixing permanent alimony, and that the amendments to arts. 148 and 160 were adopted by the same act of the legislature, indicate that earning capacity is not a factor properly to be considered in fixing alimony pen-dente lite. As was stated further in Ar-rendell the period pending divorce or separation is a period of transition, in which the married party who had not been the breadwinner while the parties were living together is searching out possibilities for employment and adjusting to new circumstances. Thus, in that temporary situation, unlike the situation existing after divorce, the relative earning capacities of the two spouses is not a factor properly to be considered. We find the distinction obviously intended by the legislature to be made between arts. 148 and 160 determinative and hold the relative earning capacities of the two spouses was properly ruled irrelevant or immaterial for purposes of fixing alimony pendente lite.
Hence, we hold the trial court was correct in refusing to consider Mrs. Whipple's earning capacity, and affirm the action of the trial court in fixing the alimony pendente lite at $1,500.00 per month, there not having been a clear abuse of the broad discretion given the trial court in fixing alimony pendente lite. Frederick v. Frederick, 379 So.2d 808 (La.App. 4th Cir.1980); Ryan v. Ryan, 401 So.2d 514 (La.App. 2d Cir.1981).
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed, at appellant's cost.
AFFIRMED.
Before COVINGTON, LOTTINGER, EDWARDS, PONDER, LEAR, COLE, WATKINS, SHORTESS, CARTER, SAVOIE, LANIER and ELLIS, JJ.
. Cf. Harrington v. Campbell, 413 So.2d 297 (La.App. 3d Cir.1982), which follows Arrendell. However, Morris v. Morris, 413 So.2d 285 (La.App. 3d Cir.1982), indicates Smith (which is based upon LSA-C.C. art. 119, because of the then unconstitutional status of art. 148), is still good law, apparently notwithstanding the fact that a new version of art. 148 which passes constitutional muster has not been enacted.