Court Opinion

ID: 9610434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:41:39.703317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:34.252004
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ANGSTMAN:
dissenting.
At about the time that this action was commenced plaintiff likewise filed an action for divorce. Both actions were tried together. The court found for plaintiff in both actions. There has been no appeal from the decree granting plaintiff a divorce.
We do not have before us in this action the complaint in the divorce action. We are not advised as to what the allegations of that complaint were. Presumably it was based upon cruelty.
Plaintiff testified: “Q. Now Mrs. Baird, you have alleged certain acts of cruelty by the defendant in your complaint, would you tell the court something of those alleged acts of cruelty? A. Well, he struck me three times.
“Q. Do you recall the approximate times that 'he struck you? A. In June we were out with some of his relatives and he got mad about something and hit me.
“Q. Was there any reason for doing that? A. I don’t know why he hit me.
“Q. Do you remember the date of that? A. I don’t know exactly but it was sometime in June, 1949.
“Q. He had no reason to strike you? A. No.
“Q. Will you describe how he struck you? A. Right on my mouth.
“Q. With his fists? A. Yes.
“Q. He hit you right in the mouth with his fists? A. Yes.
“Q. Were there any other times that he struck you that you can remember? A. Yes.
“Q. When was that? A. In August, 1949.
“Q. What were the circumstances surrounding that time in August? A. We were together, driving in the car, and he got mad about something again and hit me.
*141“Q. At that time did he use Ms fists? A. I couldn’t say for sure just how he hit me but he did hit me.
“Q. Why can’t you say for sure? A. Well, he hit me with Ms hand.
“ Q. You don’t remember whether or not he hit you with his fist doubled up? A. No I don’t.
“Q. Now will you tell the court any other acts of cruelty by the defendant? A. Well, he just used me as a maid and never as a wife.
“Q. From the time that you were first married? A. Yes, and he always wanted to get my money.
“Q. Anything to get money from you? A. That’s right.
“Q. Now what about these money matters, was he cruel to you about money? A. He sure was and then he kept talking to me about getting a divorce.”
Hence the authorities cited and quoted from in the majority opinion dealing with the question of annulling a marriage on the ground of fraud are inapplicable here. The fraud here alleged is relied on not as a ground of divorce but as a reason why plaintiff should have her property restored to her. Likewise fraud may be considered to show cruel and inhuman treatment. Longtin v. Longtin, Sup., 22 N. Y. S. (2d) 827, the case so strongly relied on in the majority opinion, so holds.
“Equity and good conscience require that the husband shall not profit by his own wrong in forcrng his wife to divorce him, that restitution shall be made to her of the property which she brought to him * * * The policy of the law should be, and is, to do justice and to give to the injured wife not merely what necessity, but what justice, demands.” 17 Am. Jur., Divorce & Separation, sec. 599, p. 469.
To the same general effect is 27 C. J. S., Divorce, sec. 297, page 1132. This is but another way of saying that the husband “should not reap where he did not sow.” Faris v. Williams, 154 Fla. 6, 16 So. (2d) 293, 294, and that he should not profit by his own wrong. “It is recognized that when a wife by labor and industry or when she advances money to her husband and *142used by bim in a business, the law will not permit a forfeiture thereof to the husband.” Masilotti v. Masilotti, 150 Fla. 86, 7 So. (2d) 132, 135.
“If the wife has, fsom equitable considerations, other and additional interests in her husband’s property than such as attach to her status as a wife — as, if her money came to the hands of the husband, and has been invested by him in real estate to which he holds the title, or if her earnings or savings have gone into his possession and aided him in acquiring the real estate — the court may properly, when dissolving the marriage relation, decree that the wife shall be vested with the title in fee to such real estate or some other real estate belonging to the husband, in order to effect an equitable and fair adjustment of the property rights of the parties.” Champion v. Myers, 207 Ill. 308, 69 N. E. 815, 816.
This principle is simply a recognition of the statement made by Mr. Chief Justice Adair in his dissenting opinion in Detert v. Detert, 115 Mont. 313, 142 Pac. (2d) 215, 229, and as to which doubtless all members of the court would agree. He there said: “Marriage is something more than a mere ‘share the wealth’ arrangement and the relation should not be considered as a license to loot the estate or fraudulently acquire the property of either spouse.”
A court of equity, to avoid a multiplicity of actions, will return to the wife in the divorce action property which originally belonged to her but which the husband acquired by taking advantage of the marriage relation to gain its possession. Mergenthaler v. Mergenthaler, 69 Cal. App. (2d) 525, 160 Pac. (2d) 121; Smith v. Smith, 110 W. Va. 82, 157 S. E. 37; Faris v. Williams, supra; Champion v. Myers, supra.
But in view of this court’s opinion in Shaw v. Shaw, 122 Mont. 593, 208 Pac. (2d) 514; Emery v. Emery, 122 Mont. 201, 200 Pac. (2d) 251, and kindred cases, plaintiff based her right to restitution of her property upon the ground of fraud practiced upon her by defendant.
I think Judge Comer was justified in finding the allegations *143of the complaint to be true and in entering the decree which he did. The decree simply directs defendant to pay to plaintiff the $8,050 which he is holding as trustee within 60 days from the date of the judgment or the property held by defendant will be sold under the order of the court to liquidate the trust.
The complaint, so far as this action is concerned, charges fraud upon defendant in inducing her to marry him by falsely and fraudulently representing to her that he was an honest man and that he loved her and wanted to make a home for her and lead a happy, normal married life; that plaintiff believed these representations to be true and would not have consented to the marriage had she known they were not true. The complaint alleges that defendant is in fact dishonest and dishonorable ; that he did not love her and did not want to lead a happy, normal married life and did not want to make a home for her; that all he wanted from plaintiff was her money; that throughout the marriage which lasted for about a year, defendant has constantly schemed and connived ways and means to procure plaintiff’s money, and that he did in fact procure $5,500 in cash and the sum of $2,550, the proceeds of certain bonds held in the joint names of plaintiff and defendant, but which was plaintiff’s property; that by reason of the false and fraudulent representations plaintiff was prevailed upon to support defendant from the time of the marriage until on or about the 2nd day of September 1949; that prior to the marriage plaintiff was a widow and the owner of $34,000 worth of property; that defendant during the marriage has been earning and is capable of earning $250 per month; that the $5,500 above mentioned was applied by defendant on the purchase price of a dwelling-house and the title was placed in his own name only, against the wishes of plaintiff; that with the proceeds from the bonds above mentioned defendant purchased a Pontiac automobile and took the title in his own name against the wishes of plaintiff; that were it not for the false and fraudulent representations made to plaintiff she would not have permitted defendant to have access to her money; that she has demanded that defendant *144return to her the money which he thus obtained or that he transfer title to her to all the property purchased by him with the money thus falsely and fraudulently obtained from her, but this he has refused to do.
The answer is in effect a general denial except that defendant admits he has been earning and is capable of earning $250 per month.
The majority opinion holds that the evidence is insufficient to warrant the findings of the court, and particularly that there is not sufficient evidence to show any fraud on the part of defendant; that at most it shows merely a courtship followed by an unsuccessful marriage during which plaintiff made some gifts to defendant.
The facts are briefly these: Plaintiff and defendant met at about four o’clock one morning when plaintiff boarded a train at Yakima, Washington, en route to Bismarck, North Dakota. Defendant was already on the train, returning to Missoula from Seattle. They had coffee together and struck up a conversation. At that time plaintiff resided at Bismarck, North Dakota, and defendant in Missoula, Montana. They corresponded by letter and telephone, later became engaged, and on September 21, 1948, intermarried. Prior to the marriage, but after the engagement, plaintiff opened a joint checking account in the bank in Missoula and placed in it her own funds. It is conceded that after the marriage plaintiff paid $5,500 from the joint cheeking account to discharge a mortgage on defendant’s home. She also placed government bonds in their joint names. These were first kept in a joint safety deposit box, but defendant without plaintiff’s knowledge moved them to a box of his own. It is conceded that she furnished $2,550 with which to buy an automobile, a boat and a motor. She denied that these advancements were intended to be gifts to defendant. She said that it was the understanding that the home should be placed in her name' along with that of defendant and that the automobile should be in her name. The record shows that when the automobile was purchased, the papers were first made out so that title would *145stand in the name of plaintiff. But defendant, -without plaintiff’s knowledge or consent, had the papers changed so that title stood in his own name and that is how it now stands. When plaintiff complained about her name not being on the real property, defendant said to her, “If you want to be that way with me, you might as well get a divorce.” This took place shortly after the marriage and before the ink was dry on the mortgage satisfaction. Plaintiff testified that immediately after the marriage defendant ceased to act as though he loved her and that he treated her as a maid and not as a wife.
I think there is sufficient evidence to sustain the findings of the trial judge. Fraud like any other fact may be proved by circumstantial evidence. If, as plaintiff says, and as defendant admitted, the marriage was to be a fifty-fifty proposition and the property to stand in the name of both, the defendant breached that understanding shortly after the marriage. He likewise denied to her shortly after the marriage the love, affection and good faith dealings which he professed before the marriage and on the strength of which she parted with her money. It is, of course, difficult to ascertain the exact state of mind of defendant at the time he assumed the confidential relationship involved in the marriage status. His state of mind can only be revealed by his subsequent actions. The record supports the conclusion that he did not fulfill the obligations which he had assumed of providing a home and living a normal life with plaintiff as her husband.
“Fraud cannot often be proven by direct evidence. Fraud conceals itself. It does not move upon the surface in straight lines. It goes in devious ways. We may with difficulty know ‘whence it cometh and whither it goeth.’ It ‘loves darkness rather than light, because its deeds are evil.’ It is rarely that we can lay our hand upon it in its going. We are more likely to discover it at its destination, before we know that it has started upon its sinuous course. When we so discover it, the search light of a judicial investigation goes back over its trail and lightens it from beginning to end. As the woodsman follows *146his game by slight indications, as a broken twig or a displaced pebble, so fraud may become apparent by innumerable circumstances, individually trivial, perhaps, but in their mass ‘confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ. ’ The weight of isolated items tending to show fraud may be ‘as light as the shadow of drifting snow,’ but the drifting snow in time makes the drift, the avalanche, the glacier. Fraud may hang over the history of the acts of a man like the leaden-hued atmosphere upon the house of Usher, ‘faintly discernible but pestilent, an atmosphere which has no affinity with the air of Heaven.’ ” Merchants’. Nat. Bank v. Greenhood, 16 Mont. 395, 429, 41 Pac. 250, 259, 851.
The rule is that: “If at the time of the transfer or gift of property to one spouse by the other, by way of gift or post-nuptial settlement, the former does not contemplate keeping the marriage vows and the intention to violate them is subsequently carried out, the weight of authority supports the proposition that this conduct constitutes such a fraud on the innocent spouse in the inception of the transaction as will be a ground for avoiding it.” 29 A. L. R., p. 210, note.
The principles relied upon here were applied in Meldrum v. Meldrum, 15 Colo. 478, 24 Pac. 1083, 11 L. R. A. 65; Johnson v. Johnson, 122 Wash. 117, 210 Pac. 382; Munroe v. Munroe, 20 Or. 579, 26 Pac. 838; and Murdock v. Murdock, 49 Cal. App. 775, 194 Pac. 762. While the circumstances showing fraud in this case are not as patent as in the cited cases, yet they are sufficient to sustain the trial court’s findings.
The majority opinion holds that under the evidence and the law there is a presumption that advancements made by plaintiff to defendant were gifts.
In Bingham v. National Bank of Montana, 105 Mont. 159, 72 Pac. (2d) 90, 113 A. L. R. 315, in my dissenting opinion, I pointed out that by the weight of authority advances made by a wife to her husband are not presumed to be gifts. This court, however, has adopted the view that the presumption of a gift obtains. At most the presumption is a rebuttable one and there *147is evidence here overturning the presumption. But the majority opinion holds that the presumption may not be overcome as a matter of law by the testimony of an interested witness. The case of McLaughlin v. Corcoran, 104 Mont. 590, 69 Pac. (2d) 597, 600, is relied on.
There the'court said: “A disputable presumption is not overcome, as a matter of law, by positive testimony to the contrary by an interested. witness, and in such circumstances a question of fact is tendered to be decided by the court or judge. ’ ’
Here if the question of gift or no gift is material, then we have an implied finding by the trial judge against the gift theory and that finding is supported by ample evidence.
But if we regard the advances as gifts, the result is the same —the gifts, if such they be, were intended to be made on the basis of defendant’s promises to lead a normal wedded life and prepare a home for plaintiff. The failure to do so would constitute a fraud upon the rights of plaintiff. Compare Huffine v. Lincoln, 52 Mont. 585, 160 Pac. 820.
If the advancements were ever intended as gifts, they were made on the supposition that defendant was and would continue to be her trusted husband, and not a scheming adversary bent on divesting her of her property and then compelling her to obtain a divorce.
It is conceded that plaintiff, as a result of the marriage, is short by more than $8,000 and defendant has gained that much by having his debt paid in the sum of $5,500 and by having a new automobile, boat and motor, costing another $2,550. To permit defendant to retain these amounts under the circumstances here shown works a fraud upon plaintiff, and the triál court was right in so holding.' I think the judgment should be affirmed.