Opinion ID: 1138826
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: later developments

Text: A planned assignation between Mrs. Retzer and the attorney in an Atlanta hotel in the summer of 1981 was suspected and discovered by Mr. Retzer. According to him, his problems with his wife were not restricted to extra-marital relations. From the beginning of their marriage, she was an exorbitant spender. Mrs. Retzer was an only child. Also, when there were serious arguments about their marital problems, Mrs. Retzer would threaten to destroy or liquidate their business. After the Atlanta incident, each retained separate legal counsel. But again, the two decided to remain married, this time, however, with three preconditions by Mr. Retzer. Mrs. Retzer was to stop seeing her lawyer boyfriend. Second, she was to get her spending under control. Finally, the corporation was to issue Mr. Retzer ten additional shares so as to make him a majority shareholder and give him corporate control. Mrs. Retzer's attorney (who was not the boyfriend) advised her against agreeing to the issuance of ten shares to Mr. Retzer. Despite this advice, she executed all documents prepared by Wayne Drinkwater, a Greenville attorney, necessary to issue Mr. Retzer ten corporate shares. Drinkwater neither attempted to advise nor represent either party, but simply to prepare the necessary instruments to issue the shares. Mr. Retzer also agreed, following this, that in the event the two were still married ten years thereafter, July 10, 1991, he would convey unto her whatever stock was necessary for each to own fifty percent of the stock. Drinkwater prepared this agreement by Mr. Retzer as well. Mrs. Retzer's involvement with her boy friend, by their own chancery court admissions, resumed the last of 1984 or early 1985. [1] They had assignations at a selected house on Highway 82 and at Lake Ferguson in Washington County, in Louisiana, and in Arkansas. The boy friend admitted also to having seen her in Vicksburg and Memphis. Both said the affair would flare up, and then die down, but the boy friend said there was no way he could answer how many times he had seen Mrs. Retzer. The two had code telephone signals whereby planned meetings could be held. Affectionate greeting card exchanges were made. Mr. Retzer found the boy friend's Virginia Military Institute ring in Mrs. Retzer's jewelry box. Mr. Retzer again suspected infidelity on the part of Mrs. Retzer during this period. For one thing, his suspicion was aroused concerning her greeting cards. Mrs. Retzer kept a copious card supply in stock to have on hand to mail to various friends and acquaintances upon the appropriate occasion. Mr. Retzer noticed among this inventory cards of a clearly sexually suggestive interest by its sender. Her possession of them did not cause him any concern. The fact he was never the recipient of a single one did. He removed and photostated some and replaced them. For whomever they were meant, however, the local boy friend at trial denied having received these particular cards. Mr. Retzer eventually hired a private investigator, and in 1986 when he saw the boy friend at a social function, he told him not to talk to Nancy again, and the boy friend agreed. In May, 1987, the attorney's secretary rented a house in Benoit, about 25 miles from Greenville, which Mrs. Retzer furnished and decorated. Tables, chairs, sofa and lamps costing $593.60, baskets, pictures, including an original watercolor costing $397.50 were installed. Mrs. Retzer took draperies from their residence, and then had a headboard cover and bedspread and pillow shams of matching material sewed for the house. She admitted spending over $2,700 on furnishings, of which $814 was charged to the corporation. Also, Mrs. Retzer carried pots and dishware, towels and linens from their residence, together with some of Mr. Retzer's private wine stock. The boy friend had a few personal items in the house. On July 13, 1987, the investigator reported the house to Mr. Retzer, who went to it, and discovered familiar items of personal property. Also in the house were two pornographic magazines, but Mrs. Retzer and the boy friend denied knowledge of these. The Retzers separated that day. While perhaps attempting to minimize the number of their occurrences, both Mrs. Retzer and the boy friend testified to acts of adultery continuing over a span of several years. Mrs. Retzer's only reason or excuse for her assignations was her testimony at trial that she and Mr. Retzer made a deal in 1982 for them both to discreetly carry on extra-marital intercourse. In 1982 when Mrs. Retzer was pregnant, an irate male employee of the Greenwood restaurant telephoned their home and told Mr. Retzer to leave his girl friend alone. At trial this young lady, who in 1982 had been an employee of the Greenwood business, testified Mr. Retzer had made a sexual proposition to her, indeed suggested that she be his mistress. Following this telephone call from the young man, according to Mrs. Retzer, she was told by her husband that they were both attractive and well off, and no doubt would receive any number of offers to sexual engagement. They should each feel free to do so, so long as there would be no public knowledge, and only the two of them knew of any such activity. Mr. Retzer denied ever having made any sexual advance to the young lady in Greenwood, and denied making any agreement for adultery with Mrs. Retzer. He did admit to receiving the telephone call from the young man, who he said was drunk, and according to Mr. Retzer, he told him never to call him again. With the exception of Mrs. Retzer's charge that Mr. Retzer had propositioned the young lady in Greenwood, the only evidence in the record that Mr. Retzer behaved in any way improperly from the time of their reconciliation in 1979 until they separated in July, 1987, was in the summer of 1982. She testified she noticed at the time his penis was bruised. Mr. Retzer denied this. On September 11 Mr. Retzer filed a complaint for divorce upon the ground of adultery and irreconcilable differences, and sought custody of the children. Mrs. Retzer filed an answer denying his ground for divorce, and a complaint for separate support and maintenance, custody of the children, an accounting, and an award of one-half of his assets.