Court Opinion

ID: 9865550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 18:54:51.211423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:08.581554
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION ROE REHEARING.
The plaintiff in error filed a motion for rehearing in this case, and cited tw'o cases, Anthony v. Anthony, 103 Ga. 250 (29 S. E. 923), and Hyde *271v. Hyde, 200 Ga. 635 (38 S. E. 2d, 287). In the Anthony ease, the wife sued for divorce on the ground of cruel treatment, in that the husband had accused her of adultery and of having communicated to him a venereal disease. The husband filed a cross-libel, in which he prayed for divorce on the ground of adultery. The court held that a verdict in favor of both parties was necessarily contradictory, in that a finding in favor of the husband and against the wife on the husband’s charge of adultery was wholly inconsistent with cruel treatment on his part in charging her with those acts. This is manifestly correct, since the wife was either innocent or guilty. As the jury found for the husband, he was not chargeable with cruel treatment in having accused her of such an offense. In the Hyde case, this court in effect held that in a suit for divorce on the ground of cruel treatment, where ' the jury in one of its verdicts found in favor of the plaintiff and in the other found in favor of the defendant, there was not such concurrence of two separate verdicts as would authorize a decree of divorce in favor of either party. The case now before us differs in its facts from each of the cases just mentioned. Here the ground of divorce by the plaintiff wife was that of cruel treatment. The cross-action brought by the husband was also based upon the ground of cruel treatment. Both could be guilty, contrary to what was true in the Anthony case. In the Hyde case, contrary to this case, there were never two concurrent verdicts in favor of either party, and for that reason a decree of divorce in favor of either ivas unauthorized. Here there' have been two concurrent verdicts in favor of both complainants, and both have been granted a total divorce, which brings the case squarely within the ruling by this court in Alford v. Alford, 189 Ga. 630 (3) (supra).
No. 15795.
April 19, 1947.
Rehearing denied May 16, 1947.
Clarence W. Walton, for plaintiff.
George B. Culpepper Jr., for defendant.

Rehearing denied.

All the Justices conctir.