Case Name: Ele Waylan PEARCE v. Maxine Bailey, wife of Ele Waylan PEARCE
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1977-03-16
Citations: 344 So. 2d 75
Docket Number: No. 8188
Parties: Ele Waylan PEARCE v. Maxine Bailey, wife of Ele Waylan PEARCE.
Judges: Before REDMANN, LEMMON, GULOT-TA, STOULIG and MORIAL, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 344
Pages: 75–78

Head Matter:
Ele Waylan PEARCE v. Maxine Bailey, wife of Ele Waylan PEARCE.
No. 8188.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fourth Circuit.
March 16, 1977.
Rehearing Denied April 13, 1977.
Writ Granted June 2, 1977.
Garland R. Rolling, Metairie, for plaintiff-appellee.
John H. Wells, Wells & Breaux, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant.
Before REDMANN, LEMMON, GULOT-TA, STOULIG and MORIAL, JJ.

Opinion:
REDMANN, Judge.
The real issue in this appeal from a post-no-fault-divorce alimony award is whether an apparently alcoholic and perhaps menopausal wife, whose continual drunken misbehavior makes living with her insupportable, is at "fault" within La.C.C. 160 so as to deny her alimony.
We deem it not an issue whether the trial judge disbelieved the testimony by the ex-husband and by the couple's major daughter which detailed the ex-wife's misbehavior, and believed instead the ex-wife's testimony that, with the then help of Alcoholics Anonymous which she no longer needs, she had overcome her alcohol problem 15 years before the marital break-up. This is not an issue because the trial judge never gave any hint that he disbelieved the ex-husband and, especially, the daughter: and to disbelieve the daughter would brand her an abominable liar, one who vilifies her mother to help her father evade an alimony obligation arising from a marriage of 20-odd years. Furthermore, the daughter in testimony appears almost sympathetic towards, and not condemnatory of, her mother. The daughter is a registered nurse, and spoke understandingly of her mother's alcohol problem: she felt her mother was ill. In the absence of an express declaration by the trial judge that he rejected the daughter's testimony as a charade, we conclude that the trial judge did not disbelieve her testimony (or that of the ex-husband). Had the trial judge deemed the daughter so wanton a liar, he would not have described this as "a very close case, really, and an unfortunate ease."
We see closeness in the question whether an alcoholic is at "fault" for his drunkenness. If alcoholism is an illness, the alcoholic is no more responsible for his illness than is the diabetic or the hemophiliac. Yet legion are alcoholics who do not drink alcohol, and thus avoid drunkenness. Thus it may, with considerable logic, be said that the sober alcoholic who begins to drink alcohol is at fault in doing so because he knows that he cannot drink in moderation.
We see no closeness in the possible question whether a menopausal wife is at fault for misbehavior caused by menopause. (Defendant ex-wife is of menopausal age, and her ex-husband's description "impossi ble to get along with" is suggestive of menopausal problems.) A wife who has behaved supportably well over many years of marriage cannot be fairly denied alimony because menopause during the last year or two makes living with her difficult or even — in the view of a husband who may have his own problems — insupportable. The law cannot blind itself to the comparative involuntariness of menopausal misbehavior. It is not a wife's "fault" that menopause afflicts her and, through her, her husband.
The evidence before us establishes that the wife's habitual intemperance made living with her insupportable (prima facie, grounds for separation under C.C. 138(3)), but it also suggests that the wife's responsibility for her misbehavior is diminished by the illness of alcoholism and possibly menopause (and is conceivably, therefore, not grounds for separation). The lay evidence might suffice to establish the wife's alcoholism, but alcoholism per se cannot exculpate a spouse for continual drunken misbehavior. However, we decline to equate drunkenness from alcoholism with the "habitual intemperance" of C.C. 138(3) and thus (see Fulmer v. Fulmer, La.1974, 301 So.2d 622) make it "fault" within C.C. 160 in every case. Although the lay evidence here does not suffice to establish it, we suppose it possible that a wife's individual condition of alcoholism, especially if aggravated by other circumstances such as menopause, could so greatly diminish her responsibility that she should be deemed without fault for purposes of post-divorce alimony under C.C. 160 (as well as for purposes of C.C. 138(3), although that question is not here involved).
That possibility is suggested, though not proven, in our case.
Because the initial determination of fault has life-long consequences, we conclude that the just disposition of this case, C.C.P. 2164, is to set aside the award of alimony and to remand to enable the wife to present (perhaps from her family doctor or gynecologist, or from a psychologist or psychiatrist) expert evidence of the extent to which her alcoholism and other factors reduce her culpability.
The ultimate question is whether the wife's misbehavior was fairly her "fault" within C.C. 160, in the "general and popular use of the words," C.C. 14.
Because we remand we do not review quantum. We do, nevertheless, note that Ward v. Ward, La.1976, 339 So.2d 839, rules that the ex-wife's earning potential is not a factor.
Remanded.
. The ex-husband's argument that C.C. 160 violates various constitutional principles is answered by Whitt v. Vauthier, La.App. 4th Cir. 1975, 316 So.2d 202, writ refused La., 320 So.2d 558.