Andris v. Andris

• Decision Date: 21 February 1939
• Docket Number: 35865
• Citation: 125 S.W.2d 38,343 Mo. 1162
• Parties: Albert H. Andris v. Juanita Andris, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

125 S.W.2d 38

343 Mo. 1162

Albert H. Andris v. Juanita Andris, Appellant

No. 35865

Supreme Court of Missouri

February 21, 1939

Rehearing Granted, Reported at 343 Mo. 1162 at 1167.

Appeal from Hannibal Court of Common Pleas; Hon. Edmund L Alford, Judge.

Affirmed.

Rendlen White & Rendlen for appellant.

Hulse & Hulse and Berryman Henwood for respondent.

Westhues, C. Cooley and Bohling, CC., concur.

OPINION

WESTHUES

This, a divorce case, originated in the Court of Common Pleas, Hannibal, Missouri. Plaintiff, respondent here, filed a suit seeking a divorce from his wife, who filed an answer admitting the marriage but denying the other allegations of the petition. She did not file a cross-bill. The trial court granted plaintiff a divorce and defendant appealed. The case reached the St. Louis Court of Appeals where the decree of the circuit court was reversed with directions to dismiss plaintiff's petition. One of the judges dissented and requested that the case be certified to this court because he deemed the majority opinion to be in conflict with controlling decisions of this court. The opinions of the Court of Appeals appear in 109 S.W. (2d), pages 707 to 721, inclusive. The majority as well as the minority opinion disclosed a great amount of labor and study on the part of the authors. We will not attempt to make as complete a statement of the evidence as was made by the Court of Appeals.

The parties were married May 21, 1932, and separated in March, 1933. Plaintiff at the time was sixty-four years of age and defendant thirty. Plaintiff had been married twice. He was divorced from his first wife and his second wife died a few years prior to the time he married defendant. Plaintiff had a daughter by his first marriage who had never lived with him because of differences between plaintiff and his first wife. She was married at the time plaintiff married the defendant in this case. The defendant had been married three times. She obtained a divorce from her first husband, married the second, obtained a divorce from him and later remarried him, then secured a second divorce from this second husband. Defendant had a daughter by her first marriage who was about eight or nine years old when defendant married plaintiff. Plaintiff in his petition alleged general indignities as a ground for divorce. In substance he alleged that defendant did not marry him in good faith, or because of any love or affection for him, but solely for the purpose of getting title to his property; that the defendant so informed various parties prior to and after the marriage; that an ante-nuptial contract was signed by both parties in which they settled their property rights, but that notwithstanding this contract defendant implored plaintiff to deed his property, or a greater portion thereof, to her; that the ante-nuptial contract disappeared from a locked box kept in the home; that beginning about December 1, 1932, until the separation in March, 1933, defendant's attitude towards him, plaintiff, was vicious; that she often cursed him and applied to him vile names and epithets; that defendant was guilty of such conduct in the presence of others; that defendant accused him of stealing money from her and of acquiring his property by stealing from others; that she failed to perform her household duties.

The trial court, in its judgment, specifically found that the defendant did not marry plaintiff in good faith, but for the purpose, scheme and design of getting title to his property; that the defendant cursed and abused plaintiff in the presence of others and accused him of stealing. The majority and minority opinions of the Court of Appeals are in accord that plaintiff's evidence was sufficient to entitle him to a divorce. In the majority opinion, however, the court found, that while plaintiff may have been an injured party, yet, the evidence showed that he was not an innocent party, and therefore not entitled to a divorce. In the minority opinion the author thereof asserts that an appellate court, in circumstances as presented by the record in this case, should defer to the findings of the trial judge, who has a better opportunity to weigh the evidence and judge the credibility of the witnesses. As can be readily observed from the majority opinion of the Court of Appeals, plaintiff's witnesses were chiefly his friends, referred to in the opinion and in the record as plaintiff's cronies. We find that the most damaging evidence against plaintiff was given by witnesses who were very friendly toward defendant. That, however, is not uncommon. In divorce cases the witnesses who testify are as a rule friendly to the party in whose behalf they give testimony. The trial court evidently did not believe much of the testimony of the witnesses for the defendant. There certainly was a sharp dispute in the evidence. In such a case a court must look to sign posts, if any there are, to lead it to a correct decision. We find such in the record in this case. The defendant emphatically denied that she married plaintiff for his money, or that she attempted to persuade him to deed her his property. She testified that she signed the ante-nuptial contract at plaintiff's request a day or so before the marriage; that she was not particularly interested in the provisions of the contract. She further testified that plaintiff treated her very well until he found that the ante-nuptial contract had disappeared. Note her testimony:

"I was good to Mr. Andris until I took sick, and the contracts were missing, and he commenced abusing me, wanting me to sign the second contracts. This was the last of October or the first of November, 1932. Up to that time, Mr. Andris was good to me, and we got along fine. He stayed away from the fire department, he wouldn't go over there where those...