Court Opinion

ID: 9810462
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:50:44.538394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:56.587377
License: Public Domain

Clark, C. J.,
dissenting: The facts found by the judge upon a motion for alimony are that, though the wife left her husband’s home, “she was caused to do so by reason of the treatment accorded her,” and “statements made to her by her husband — among others, that if she would leave and get a divorce from him he would bear the expense of same and would pay her a sum of money; that her health was bad, causing her to go to a hospital, where she stayed for a period of time, her husband paying her no attention and refusing to pay bill for the same; that her husband owns valuable land and other property, while she has no- property.” The husband admits in his answer the fidelity of his wife, his possession of property, and the utter poverty of the wife.
If it be conceded that the finding that the husband stated to her that if she would leave and get a divorce he would bear the expense and pay her a sum of money was not sufficient ground to base the judgment for alimony, yet the judge finds as a fact that she was “caused to do so (leave her husband’s home) by reason of the treatment accorded her.” This, upon the face of it, taken in connection with the other findings as to the husband’s refusal to pay anything for her necessary expenses while at the hospital, though he is a man of large property, and she has *335nothing, should entitle her to the alimony allotted her of $50 per month while the matter is being more fully investigated.
If the finding that she was caused to leave by reason of treatment accorded her by her husband was not full enough, it was the duty of the husband to ask for a finding of more sufficient details. It must be remembered that, under such circumstances, usually, and it is found as a fact in this case, the wife is in entirely destitute circumstances, with no means of support and nowhere to go, and she is not able to bear the expense and delay of appeals to this Court upon such objections, which it was the duty of the husband to have avoided by asking for fuller finding as to the nature of the treatment which had caused her to leave.
This statute is the humane provision for persons in the circumstances of this plaintiff, and it should be construed liberally, not narrowly, to furnish the remedy desired, which is that a destitute wife might have some support and somewhere to go, and some means of employing counsel that her case may be heard, and of obtaining medical treatment, which it was in evidence she acutely needed.
With this wife, as with many others, it must be remembered that she has been occupied with her household duties, under which her health has broken down; that she has received no pay for her services beyond food and clothes, and that when her husband tires of her she has not a cent of money while the husband, out of doors and mixing with the world, has accumulated wealth. Under these circumstances, when the husband tires of the wife and bids her be gone, or treats her so harshly as to make her staying with him unendurable, it would be brutal if the law did not require him to furnish some means that she may lay her grievance before the courts with an allowance for subsistence in the meantime, and the law passed for that purpose should not be construed so technically as to make it impossible or difficult for her to present her case.
To construe this statute strictly so as to require successive appeals to this Court upon technical objections which the husband should have avoided by asking for more complete statement of the details — of which he was already informed — destroys the very object of the statute, which is to give to the sick and destitute wife some means of living while the issue of divorce from bed and board is being investigated.
If this is not done, it leaves it in the power of the husband to prevent her prosecuting the action and to prevent the court from passing upon the merits of the case. She is without remedy if denied that which the law was intended to give her.
The defendant does not aver that his wife has been unfaithful to him in any way, and the sole assignment of error is that the findings of fact are not sufficient in law to sustain the judgment allotting the wife alimony pendente lite.