Court Opinion

ID: 9722874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:53:51.79284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:41.276019
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION UPON DENIAL OF REHEARING Mr. JUSTICE HAYES1  delivered the opinion of the court: The first contention urged in the petition for rehearing is that this court erred in reversing outright the judgment of the trial court for divorce in favor of plaintiff-appellee-petitioner (hereinafter plaintiff), rather than reversing and remanding the cause for a new trial. The basis for the contention is as follows: plaintiff’s original complaint was for partition of the marital residence, title to which was held in joint tenancy by plaintiff and defendant-appellant (hereinafter defendant); at that time, defendant still resided there, but plaintiff did not. Subsequently, plaintiff filed an amended complaint in two counts: Count I for partition, and Count II for divorce on the statutory ground of extreme and repeated mental cruelty. Defendant filed an answer responding to each Count, and the matter went to trial on the amended complaint and answer. After trial, the trial court entered a single judgment in favor of plaintiff entitled “Judgment for Divorce”, in which the court found that the marital residence must be sold and so ordered. Since none of the contentions urged in this petition for rehearing relate to the partition count, no further reference to that matter need be made; for the purpose of considering the petition for rehearing, the case may be regarded as an action for divorce on the statutory ground of mental cruelty. In our filed opinion in this case, as one independent ground for reversing the judgment for divorce in favor of plaintiff, we held that plaintiff had failed to plead and to prove an essential element of a cause of action for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty, namely, that plaintiff by his conduct had not provoked the acts of defendant which he alleged constituted the mental cruelty of defendant. As a corollary, we held further that, in an action for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty, the matter of provocation was not an affirmative defense within the scope of section 8a of the Divorce Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 40, par. 9a, effective August 14, 1967). In so holding that absence of provocation was an essential element of a cause of action for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty and not an affirmative defense to be first pleaded and proved by defendant under section 8a, we held the exact contradictory of the holding in a prior decision handed down in 1971 by another division of our own district of the Appellate Court of Illinois, namely, Del Rosario v. Del Rosario (1970), 133 Ill. App. 2d 8, 270 N.E.2d 160. Del Rosario held that the enactment of section 8a changed the existing Illinois law that absence of provocation was an essential element of a cause of action for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty by making provocation an affirmative defense to such a cause of action. The then existing Illinois law was established in Stanard v. Stanard (1969), 108 Ill. App. 2d 240, 248, 247 N.E.2d 438. (See also Fleener v. Fleener (1970), 133 Ill. App. 2d 118, 263 N.E.2d 879.) The impact, if any, on then existing Illinois law of the enactment of section 8a was not involved in Stanard because section 8a had not become effective at the time that that action for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty had been filed. Conceding that fact, the Stanard court nevertheless made clear, in what must be regarded as dictum, its view that section 8a was not intended to change the existing Illinois law as to the matter of provocation in an action for divorce on the ground of mental cruelty by making provocation an affirmative defense. Fleener made no mention of section 8a. Hence, the Del Rosario court disregarded the Stanard dictum, and distinguished cases such as Stanard and Fleener by its construction of section 8a.  Plaintiff’s contention is that the trial court and the parties in the instant case, in the absence of any applicable decision of our Supreme Court, were controlled by the Del Rosario decision (despite decisions to the contrary, such as Stanard and Fleener, in another district of the appellate court), since Del Rosario was a decision of the First District, the district in which the trial court was sitting. A recent decision of the Third District of the Appellate Court has held that, where there is no applicable Supreme Court decision and where there is a conflict of appellate court decisions between appellate court districts, “[a] trial court, located in an appellate district where a conclusion on an issue is reached, should adhere to that conclusion and not to one promulgated in another district.” Garcia v. Hynes & Howes Real Estate, Inc. (1975), 29 Ill. App. 3d 479, 482, 331 N.E.2d 634, 636. As a consequence, plaintiff then contends that, when a case has had to be tried upon a theory of law which is rejected on appeal, then a new trial should be granted in order to permit the case to be tried upon the theory of law which is accepted on appeal. Hence, our reversal should not have been an outright reversal but should have been coupled with a remand for a new trial in order to permit plaintiff to allege and prove the essential element of absence of provocation. We need not reach this contention for the following reason: As a second and independent ground for our outright reversal, we held that the trial court’s judgment in favor of plaintiff was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. In so holding, we said: “Mental cruelty, as a ground for divorce, consists of a course of abusive and humiliating treatment, calculated or obviously of a nature to torture, discommode, or render miserable the life of the opposite spouse; and which actually affects the physical or mental health of such spouse. [Citation.] To prove a case entitling a spouse to divorce on the ground of mental cruelty, the evidence must show that the conduct of the offending spouse 000 constitutes a course of abusive and humiliating treatment that makes the life of the complaining spouse miserable, or endangers his or her life, person or health. [Citation.] Whether the acts in question constituted mental cruelty depends on the total factual background and is determined primarily by the effect the alleged misconduct has on the complaining party. [Citation.] # # fc Moreover, there is no evidence in this case that Dr. Rosenbaum’s health, physical or mental, was adversely affected by anything his wife did after he left his family home. To the contrary, he has led a comfortable, enjoyable and steadily improving life, in a style he has pursued to his satisfaction. He has continued in his chosen work. His income has progressively increased. His interests in matters vocational and avocational have not changed or diminished.” 38 Ill. App. 3d 1, 12-13.  We reject plaintiff’s second contention in his petition for rehearing that this holding is inconsistent with the evidence of record, and we adhere to the holding. It follows that, even assuming that on a retrial plaintiff would be able to prove the now required allegation of absence of provocation on his part, he still could not obtain a judgment in his favor owing to his failure to prove other essential elements of the cause of action, as to which other elements he is not entitled to a new trial. In his petition for rehearing, plaintiff’s final two contentions complain of certain directions which we issued to the trial court in remanding the cause to that court for entry of judgment in favor of defendant on Count II of the complaint.  One direction was that the trial court conduct a hearing to determine the reasonable amount which plaintiff should have paid to defendant as temporary alimony from the filing of the second amended complaint to the entry of judgment for plaintiff, because, in view of the relative financial standing of the parties as revealed by the record, we concluded that the award of *25 per week constituted an abuse of discretion. Citing, inter alia, Kovac v. Kovac (1960), 26 Ill. App. 2d 29, 167 N.E.2d 281, plaintiff contends that defendant never appealed from the award of temporary alimony so that the matter was not before us for review. Plaintiff points out: (1) Defendant did not seek the required special finding in the order of November, 1972, for temporary alimony so as to ask leave for a permissive interlocutory appeal, nor did defendant ever seek such leave; (2) There is nothing relating to temporary alimony in the “Judgment for Divorce” from which defendant appealed or in the post-trial motion from the denial of which defendant appealed; (3) Defendant’s appellate brief contains only a reference to the matter of temporary alimony, which reference relates only to alleged arrearages. We conclude that plaintiff is correct in contending that the matter of temporary alimony was not before us for review, and we have accordingly modified the order portion (Part V) of our opinion.  Another direction was that the trial court determine the amount of trial attorney fees paid by defendant and order plaintiff to reimburse defendant in that total amount. Plaintiff-appellee’s petition for rehearing alleges that the matter of defendant’s trial attorney fees was the subject of a post-judgment hearing in the trial court which resulted in an order that plaintiff pay defendant *800 toward defendant’s trial attorney fees, from which order defendant did not appeal, so that the matter was not before us for review. But, as has been pointed out to us by a motion of defendant for clarification of the supplemental opinion as to the matter of trial attorney fees, the fact is that the order awarding defendant *800 toward the fees which defendant personally paid to her trial attorney out of her own pocket was incorporated into, and became a part of, the “Judgment for Divorce,” from which defendant filed a timely amended notice of appeal which expressly raised the matter of the *800 award. The matter had been specifically raised in the trial court in defendant’s post-trial motion to vacate the “Judgment for Divorce.” We conclude that the matter is properly before us for review. In her motion for clarification, defendant has further maintained in essence that she should have been awarded the total amount (which the motion alleges was from *850 to *1,000) which she paid out of her own pocket in fees to her trial attorney, rather than merely *800; and she asks that, on remand, the trial court be directed to determine that total amount and then to direct plaintiff to pay her the said amount. As best we can determine, defendant’s reasons for her position are: (1) simply because she won her appeal, she is thereby entitled to reimbursement of her total trial attorney fees, as well as to reimbursement of her trial costs; (2) plaintiff’s complaint in the instant action for divorce contained false allegations which were made in bad faith, and the action itself constituted mere harassment and abuse of defendant by plaintiff, thus entitling defendant to reasonable trial attorney fees incurred in defense, all presumably pursuant to the provisions of section 41 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 110, par. 41); and (3) plaintiff failed to disclose certain of his assets at the hearing on the award of her trial attorney fees. As to reason (1): Trial attorney fees are distinct from trial costs, and may be awarded only when expressly authorized by statute. There is no statute authorizing the award of trial attorney fees to the successful party on an appeal merely because that party is the successful party. As to reason (2): It is clear from the record that the trial court did not make the specific findings necessary for recovery of attorney fees under the provisions of section 41 of the Civil Practice Act (111. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 110, par. 41). (See Urban v. Brady (1967), 86 Ill. App. 2d 158, 230 N.E.2d 65.) And, from the record in the instant case, we cannot say that, in failing or refusing to make such specific findings, the trial court abused its discretion. For the legal principle, see Greengard v. Cooper (1966), 78 Ill. App. 2d 86, 221 N.E.2d 775. As to reason (3): The statute authorizing the award of trial attorney fees in the instant case is section 15 of the Divorce Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1971, ch. 40, par. 16). As we said in Moreau v. Moreau (1973), 9 Ill. App. 3d 1008, 1009, 293 N.E.2d 680, 681: “It is well settled that granting of attorney’s fees in a divorce action is discretionary with the trial court, but depends, nonetheless, on the relative ability 0 ° * to pay.” It follows that, in order for us, at defendant’s behest, to reverse the trial court’s award of trial attorney fees in the amount of 5800 and remand for a new hearing on that matter, we would have to hold that the trial court abused its discretion either in making the award after the original hearing or in refusing, at the subsequent hearing on defendant’s motion to vacate the judgment for divorce, to reopen the original hearing for the introduction of later discovered evidence as to plaintiff’s alleged concealment of assets. On the state of the record in the instant case, we cannot so hold. For the above reasons, we hold that defendant has not established any abuse of discretion by the trial court in awarding her $800 toward her trial attorney fees, and we reject defendant’s request that we reverse that award and remand the matter for a new hearing.  A further direction was that defendant, because she was successful on this appeal, was entitled to recover appellate attorney fees from plaintiff, despite the absence of any statutory authorization therefor in the Divorce Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 40, par. 16). As we now see it, this issue need not be reached in this case because, even assuming that defendant was so entitled, in fact she incurred no appellate attorney fees since she conducted the entire appeal pro se. Nor is she entitled to any “attorney fee” compensation for her pro se services. (Sanitary District v. Curran (1907), 132 Ill. App. 241.) We have accordingly modified the order portion (Part V) of our opinion. Defendant, however, is entitled to reimbursement from plaintiff for appellate costs incurred (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 33, par. 22) and for trial costs incurred since our holding is that plaintiff failed to prove a cause of action (Bauer v. Glos (1910), 244 Ill. 627, 633, 91 N.E. 701). Petition for rehearing denied. STAMOS, P. J., and DOWNING, J., concur.   Mr. Justice Leighton, who delivered the opinion of the court, resigned from the court effective at the close of business on 26 February 1976, in order to accept appointment as a Federal District Court Judge. For the purpose of considering the petition for rehearing, Mr. Justice Hayes was assigned to replace Mr. Justice Leighton.