Court Opinion

ID: 9635996
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:11:49.844619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:39.995536
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Watkins, J.:
I respectfully dissent.
Sara Wiegand, the plaintiff-appellee, filed her action in divorce on July 12, 1967. A petition for counsel fees and for alimony pendente lite was filed and an order entered for alimony in the amount of $875 per *287month and $250 preliminary counsel fees, on August 14, 1967. In March, 1971, the wife through her third attorney filed the present petition. After several hearings, the order appealed from was entered in the amount of $5,000 and court costs. There are no children of this marriage and the wife had received alimony pendente lite at the rate of $875 per month for 56 months. The wife admitted receiving a total of at least $150,000 from the appellant up to March 8, 1972. The husband contends that she received a total of $167,500 from August, 1967 to March, 1972.
She testified that she spent the entire sum and the coui*t below denied defense counsel the opportunity to cross-examine her as to how she spent the money and was now destitute. When fixing alimony pendente lite and counsel fees for a wife in a divox’ce action, the court should look at the separate estate axxd income of the wife. Wolfe v. Wolfe, 202 Pa. Superior Ct. 70, 195 A. 2d 272 (1963); Campana v. Campana, 186 Pa. Superior Ct. 472, 142 A. 2d 169 (1958).
In Shuman v. Shuman, 195 Pa. Superior Ct. 155, 170 A. 2d 602 (1961), this Court held at page 158: “We must bear in mind that the award of coxxnsel fees in a divorce case is not intended to be in full reinbursement for expeixditures which the wife may be required to make in the employment of counsel. It should merely be sufficient in amount to prevent that denial of justice which is the main concern of the courts.”
The development of “Women’s Lib” and the vote of the Pennsylvaxxia Legislature in favor of the “Equal Eights Amendment” points up the fact that more serious consideration must now be given the problems of support, alimony pendente lite and counsel fees then heretofore when such women’s rights wex*e taken for granted.
The petitioner in this case swore in her petition and testified before the court that she was destitute *288and in need of funds for counsel fees. The fact that she admitted the receipt of $150,000 in 56 months makes inquiry as to the dispersal of her separate estate and income most germane to the determination of whether she was so destitute as to require the payment of her counsel fees by the husband to prevent a denial of justice. The failure of the court below to permit cross-examination so that a full disclosure as to her estate and income and its disposition over the period involved would be before the court was an abuse of discretion.
I would remand the case for further hearing in accordance with this opinion.
Weight, P. J., and Jacobs, J., join in this dissenting opinion.