Court Opinion

ID: 9944842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 18:41:48.369279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:23:33.535393
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR COUNSEL FEES PENDENTE LITE
Appellant brought a suit for divorce from his wife, the appellee, in the Chancery Court of Forrest County. The final decree sustained appellee's motion to exclude the testimony and dismiss the bill. In the trial court appellee did not ask for or obtain a decree for counsel fees, and the decree made no mention thereof.
This case on appeal will not be docketed for submission to this Court for several months. Appellee, Mrs. Alma S. Ladner, has filed a motion for an allowance of counsel fees for resisting this appeal. (Hn 5) The pertinent rule is summarized in Bunkley and Morse, Amis On Divorce and Separation in Mississippi (1957), Sec. 5.09, page 176: ". . . pending an appeal of the case the Supreme Court will not grant counsel fees pendente lite where the lower court declined to allow counsel fees. Such motion to the Supreme Court will be overruled without prejudice to the claim for counsel fees when the cause is heard on the merits." *Page 228 
In Castleberry v. Castleberry, 56 So.2d 77 (Miss. 1952), where the lower court had declined to allow counsel fees, it was stated that there was therefore no authority "whereby we may fix and allow such fees pendente lite". The same rule should apply where such fees are not requested in the trial court. Accordingly, this motion is overruled, without prejudice to a claim for counsel fees when the cause is heard on the merits.
Motion for counsel fees pendente lite overruled.
McGehee, C.J., and Kyle, Arrington and Gillespie, JJ.,
concur.