Court Opinion

ID: 9661781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:49:35.664402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:33.490468
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
After our original opinion was handed down in this case the parties involved filed *632a stipulation, agreed to by each, to the effect that the original transcript heretofore filed in this cause was incomplete in that the second page of the defendant’s amended motion for new trial was omitted through an oversight of the District Clerk and not included in the transcript. Pursuant to such agreed stipulation a supplemental transcript was filed with the clerk of this Court which contains the entire text of the defendant’s amended motion for new trial.
The filing of the appellant’s complete amended motion for new trial, including the omitted second page, was prompted by the action of this Court in overruling appellant’s points 7 and 8 because such points were not founded on any complaint contained in the incomplete amended motion for new trial which was originally filed with this Court.
With reference to point 7 it is again pointed out that the claimed error, if any, of the Court in excluding portions of the testimony of the appellee which was given by her in a preliminary hearing was cured for the reason that most, if not all, of the excluded testimony complained of and pertinent to the matters here involved was brought out during the trial and was before the jury. The error, if any, complained of in point 7 was harmless. Rule 434, T.R.C.P., and authorities there cited.
Appellant’s point 8 complains of the court’s charge as being unsupported by the pleadings. The pleadings alleged that the parties were married on or about August 11, 1961, and permanently separated during the month of May, 1968. By way of answer and cross-action, the defendant (appellant) denies that he is now or has ever been married to plaintiff (appellee) in any religious, civil or common-law marriage. Appellant asserts by his pleadings that the appellee is falsely and fraudulently asserting that she is his wife and as such, the owner of a community interest in his property; that he is not now and never has been married to the appellee who is asserting a pretended marriage relationship with him for the purpose of creating a cloud upon the title to his property.
The main thrust of the appellant’s point as to lack of pleadings is the date of the alleged marriage to him. There can be no doubt that the marriage was alleged. As was stated in the original opinion the parties to this suit commenced to live together on August 11, 1961, at which time the appellee was married to Kenneth Miller. The judgment in her divorce from Miller recites that the divorce action came on to be heard on July 11, 1963. The judgment was signed on August 14, 1963. The appel-lee’s marriage to Miller was a valid one which could be terminated only by death of one of the parties to it, annulment of the marriage or by divorce. A common-law marriage could not come into being between the parties to this suit until one of the above events occurred. When her divorce from Miller occurred the appellee was free to marry appellant.
According to the testimony in this case the parties to this cause began living together under an agreement presently to be husband and wife during the summer of 1963 following her divorce from Miller and continued to live together as husband and wife until May of 1968, a period of about five years during which time they held each other out to the public as being husband and wife.
The intention of the parties present at the time this relationship commenced following the divorce from Miller and their conduct thereafter constituted a valid common-law marriage.
Since the appellee was not divorced from Miller until July 11, 1963, or August 14, 1963, under the record in this case, the parties could not enter into a valid common-law marriage until the judgment of divorce from Miller was rendered. Since this was so as a matter of law it was not error for the court to use the date it did in the issue complained of. Under the facts it was not a comment on the weight of the evidence and since the allegation of marriage was *633contained in the pleadings it was not necessary to amend them to support the issue given by the court.
We would emphasize here that once the marriage between the parties to this suit was consummated in the summer of 1963 the action or conduct of one of the parties some five years later should not alter the legal status of their marriage. It was their manifested intention in the summer of 1963 which controlled the status of their relationship as husband and wife.
The motion for rehearing is denied.