Court Opinion

ID: 9829197
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 19:04:19.515739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:42:58.224213
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
It is a settled rule of decision in this state that alimony may be granted a wife who sues for divorce, pending the divorce proceedings, but, if the divorce is denied, the court is without authority in that proceeding to adjust or settle property rights of the parties ; that power being given only in the event the divorce is granted. Burns v. Burns, 69 Tex. Civ. App. 649, 126 S. W. 333; Harkness v. Harkness (Tex. Civ. App.) 1 S.W.(2d) 399. It is further settled that the district court is without authority to enter a decree compelling the husband to support his wife when no divorce is sought by her. Trevino v. Trevino, 63 Tex. 650.
In Gonzales v. Gonzales, 300 S. W. 20, it was held by the Commission of Appeals that a wife could not sue her husband to recover money expended by her out of her separate estate for her necessary living expenses, after he had deserted her without cause and had left her no means of support.
The foregoing authorities are stressed by appellant as being in conflict with the decision of this court in the present suit and as showing the conclusions we reached upon original hearing were erroneous.
It is our conclusion that the asserted conflict of decisions does not exist. In the present suit, plaintiff did not seek an order of court, requiring her husband to support her ; nor was the suit for a debt claimed to be due her by her husband for money expended by her for her support; nor was the suit one for divorce with prayer for alimony during its pendency, and for settlement of their property rights if the divorce should be gránted. The character of her suit was entirely different and distinct from any of those involved in the authorities cited. It was a proceeding in equity to subject one-half of certain community property of herself and husband, to wit, one-half of the wages he was earning, for use in meeting the necessary living expenses of herself and child, after her husband had wrongfully and willfully deserted her and had refused to contribute anything to her support, leaving her and her child entirely dependent for living expenses upon the charity of others. The facts alleged and proven show that the salary which the defendant is earning is community property of himself and plaintiff, and the plaintiff is entitled to one-half thereof, under and by virtue *381of the statutes of this state. Since the husband was under the legal duty to support his wife and child out of his separate estate as well as out of community funds, it follows .necessarily that in equity he holds at least one-half of such community property in trust for his wife, and, after he had repudiated the trust and all the duties to his wife and child incident thereto, the suit was instituted to subject the wife’s half of such community property, to wit, personal earnings of the defendant, to the support of the plaintiff and their child. In other words, the suit was one in equity, and not a suit at law, as were the suits cited by appellant. The same principles of equity were involved in it as those involved and determined in the case of Dority v. Dority, decided by our Supreme Court and reported in 96 Tex. 215, 71 S. W. 950, 60 L. R. A. 941. In that suit, the husband, after de■serting his wife but not being divorced from her, undertook to manage and control certain real property belonging to the separate estate of the 'wife, and was diverting the revenues derived therefrom to his own personal use to the exclusion of his wife, who was in need of the same to defray her necessary living expenses. It was held that the wife was entitled to an injunction to restrain him from so doing. In that case, counsel for the husband invoked the provisions of the statutes then in force, which gave the husband the right to control and manage the separate estate of the wife, also the decision of the Supreme Court in Trevino v. Trevino, supra. It was also insisted that the wife should be denied the relief sought because the husband could be held liable to any one who might furnish her means of support. After reference to the points so made, the following was said by the Supreme Court:
“And if it be true, as held in Trevino v. Trevino, supra, that the wife cannot maintain an action against him to require him to support her, this only strengthens the position that she is entitled to get her support by the proper management of her separate property. Married women may also contract for necessaries and bind their separate property for the prices of them, but why should they be forced, out of respect for supposed rights of husbands, to thus consume the corpus of their estates, when their revenues, properly applied, would supply all needs? The answer is deducible from the decisions that, when the husband totally fails in the discharge of his duty, and so diverts the fruits of the wife’s property as to deprive her of the benefits which the law entitles her to receive therefrom through his management, the right and power which the law gives him to enable him the better to discharge the duty is not an obstacle to the granting of such relief as the nature of the case may require. That these rights of the wife may be asserted by herself under some circumstances, without action in the courts, although the marriage is not dissolved, is settled by many decisions of this court. Wright v. Hays, supra; Cheek v. Bellows, 17 Tex. 613 [67 Am. Dec. 686]; Cullers v. James, 66 Tex. 494 [1 S. W. 314]; Fullerton v. Doyle, 18 Tex. 13; Kelley v. Whitmore, 41 Tex. 648; Anna Berta Lodge v. Leverton, 42 Tex. 20; Clements v. Ewing, 71 Tex. 372 [9 S. W. 312]; Hector v. Knox, 63 Tex. 617; Slator v. Neal, 64 Tex. 222; Davis v. Saladee, 57 Tex. 326. While these decisions may not wholly apply to a case like this, where the husband is present asserting control of the wife’s property, they do affirm the principle that his right of management is dependent upon the discharge of the duties which go hand in hand with that right, and that the wife during marriage has rights of property of which she may avail herself when the purposes of the law in making the husband the manager of her estate are defeated by his abandonment of the duty. When there has been no abandonment by the husband of his rights and powers as such, it may be true that the wife is not, by the decisions referred to, restored to all the capacities of a feme- sole merely by his misconduct; but we think that it is also true that, if the husband has repudiated the duties and is asserting only the rights and powers'of his position for selfish purposes, the wife has rights of property which she can enforce in the courts, and, if they can only be adequately enforced by enjoining the husband from controlling her property, that this may be done.”
While it is true that what was said in that decision had reference to rents and revenues arising from the separate property of the wife, in principle it applies with equal force to the interest which the wife legally owns in community property, since every element necessary to constitute the trust relation occupied by the husband towards such property exists in both instances alike. Furthermore, under the statutes in force at the time that decision was rendered, the rents and revenues arising from land belonging to the separate estate of the wife constituted community property of herself and husband, although under the Acts of 1913 (chapter 32), passed after that decision was rendered, such rents and revenues were made the separate property of the wife. See Hayden v. McMillan, 4 Tex. Civ. App. 479, 23 S. W. 430, by the Court of Civil Appeals of San Antonio (writ of error refused); De Berrera v. Frost, 33 Tex. Civ. App. 580, 77 S. W. 637. It is to be further noted that the effect of that decision was to award to the wife the entire rents accruing from the land for her support, notwithstanding the same constituted community property in which the husband owned a half interest, since the entire community estate, as well as his separate estate, was liable for her support. And since the primary purpose of that suit was to subject such rents to the support of the wife through a proceeding in equity, what was there said applies with equal force to the present suit, which is likewise an appeal to a court of equity, to subject one-half only of appellant’s earnings, which are likewise community property and in which half she is vested with the legal title, to the support of herself and child. And *382it is to be noted further that the record in this case shows conclusively that it is impossible for the wife to purchase the necessities of life from others on the credit of the husband. The fact that in the Dority Case relief was granted through the means of a writ of injunction, while in the present suit it was through the means of a receivership proceeding, could not distinguish the two cases.
Accordingly, appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.