Court Opinion

ID: 9643203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:21:59.135878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:58.217069
License: Public Domain

On Rehearing.
CRAMER, Justice.
The full Court has carefully reviewed our original holding in this case, in view of some of the assignments in the motion for- rehearing. While it has often been said, as in Speer in Law of Marital Rights in Texas, 3rd Ed., sec. 597, p. 729, “In determining the validity of a marriage contract, no very different rule is applied from that applicable to other contracts,” it is also true that the relationship brought about by marriage is of such public concern that the Legislature has impressed more stringent rules as to the burden of proof with reference to its dissolution than upon the cancellation or setting aside of ordinary contracts. In Garcia v. Garcia, Tex.Civ.App., 144 S.W.2d 605, 606, a proceeding for the annulment of a marriage, the parties agreed that the facts justified, and that the appellate court should render judgment annulling the marriage. The court there said: “The situation as a difficult one, but we have concluded that in deference to a wise public policy — which prohibits the courts from dissolving the marriage relation, when once entered into, except upon clear and satisfactory evidence, and never upon the mere agreement of the parties— we cannot reverse the judgment of the trial court and here render judgment annulling the marriage of plaintiff and de*907fendant, but can only affirm the judgment of the court below.” We are in agreement with the rule laid down and applied there. The requirement of full and satisfactory evidence is as applicable to annulment proceedings as it is to divorce proceedings. Such requirement is found in Article 4632, R.C.S. 1925, under Chapter 4, which chapter applies to 'both annulment and divorce proceedings. The requirement of full and satisfactory proof is also as applicable in the Court of Civil Appeals as it is in the trial court. Train v. Train, Tex.Civ.App., 209 S.W.2d 212, and cases there cited. This Court in its original disposition of this appeal found that the rule as to full and satisfactory proof on the annulment phase of the case had not been satisfied.
On the assignments which attack our judgment granting the divorce under the ten-year separation statute, the record shows that both parties testified to their separation of more than ten years; and such fact, under the record as a whole, was undisputed. The ten-year separation provision of our statute art. 4629, subdv. 4, V. A.C.S. was placed therein by amendment in 1913 (H.B. 34; ch. 97, p. 183, General Laws, 33rd Leg., Reg. Session); and, as held in Robertson v. Robertson, Tex.Civ.App., 217 S.W.2d 132 (See full note thereon in 1 Baylor Law Review, No. 4, p. 479), it is an independent ground for divorce, not subject to the defenses applicable to other grounds for divorce.
Finding no error in our former judgment, the motion for rehearing is overruled.