Bennett v. Bennett, 60-702

• Decision Date: 11 September 1961
• Docket Number: No. 60-702,60-702
• Citation: 132 So.2d 630
• Parties: Zetta Frances BENNETT, Appellant, v. Guy A. BENNETT, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 630

132 So.2d 630

Zetta Frances BENNETT, Appellant, v. Guy A. BENNETT, Appellee.

No. 60-702.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Sept. 11, 1961.

Chesley V. Morton & Associates, Fort Lauderdale, and Robert F. Clark, Miami, for appellant.

J. R. Bates, Miami, for appellee.

Before PEARSON, TILLMAN, C. J., and HORTON and CARROLL, JJ.

HORTON, Judge.

This appeal seeks review of a final decree in a divorce action and an order on rule to show cause entered subsequent thereto. The husband instituted suit for divorce upon the ground of extreme cruelty. The wife answered and counter-claimed for divorce upon the ground of extreme cruelty. Both parties sought custody of the two minor children of the marriage.

This cause involved protracted litigation resulting in the final decree appealed wherein the chancellor, inter alia, decreed as follows:

'That the evidence adduced hereto-fore sustains the allegations of cruelty upon the part of the parties hereto each to the other.

'That the marriage between the Plaintiff, Guy A. Bennett, and the Defendant, Zetta Frances Bennett, be, and the same is hereby dissolved, a vinculo matrimonii, and the said parties and each of them are hereby forever freed from the bonds of matrimony heretofore existing between them and from the obligations arising therefrom.

'That the Plaintiff, Guy A. Bennett, be and he is hereby awarded the permanent care, custody and control of the minor children of the parties, to-wit: Zetta Maynor Bennett and Guy Arnold Bennett, Jr., with liberal rights of visitation to the Defendant, Zetta Frances Bennett.'

In addition, the decree made provision for permanent alimony, attorney's fees and costs in favor of the wife and retained jurisdiction for further determination of matters touching upon custody, support, alimony and disposition of property as the equities might require

The appellant has argued seven points upon which she relies for reversal of the final decree; in addition, she has argued three points which are directed to alleged errors of the chancellor in the entry of a post decretal order.

Primarily the wife contends that the final decree should have determined the equities between the parties and designated the one entitled to a divorce. The law on this question appears to be well settled by the Supreme Court of this state in Friedman v. Friedman, Fla.1958, 100 So.2d 167, 170, when that court, speaking through Justice Thornal, said:

'After carefully considering...