Bullen v. Bullen
| Decision Date | 01 November 1927 |
| Docket Number | 4535 |
| Citation | 262 P. 292,71 Utah 63 |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
| Parties | BULLEN v. BULLEN |
As Modified January 4, 1928.
Appeal from District Court, First District, Cache County; L. B Wight, Special Judge.
Action for divorce by Ethel S. Bullen against Russel Bullen. From the judgment granting a divorce and dividing property and providing for alimony, plaintiff appeals. Cause remanded with directions.
Cause remanded to the district court with directions to modify. Appellant to recover costs.
George Q. Rich, of Ogden, for appellant.
George C. Heinrich, of Logan, for respondent.
The plaintiff brought this action against defendant for a divorce upon the grounds of cruelty, for the custody of the four minor children of the parties, for a division of property, and for alimony for the support of plaintiff and her children. After a trial the court granted a decree of divorce to the plaintiff as prayed for, and pursuant to the stipulation of the parties disposed of the four minor children by awarding the custody of three of them to the plaintiff and one to the defendant. With respect to a division of property and alimony, the court decreed to plaintiff household furniture of the value of $ 600, and required the defendant to pay as alimony for the support of plaintiff and the three minor children awarded to her custody the sum of $ 75 per month. The defendant was also required to pay $ 200 attorney's fees for the plaintiff's attorneys. From the judgment plaintiff has appealed. The chief complaint of the appellant is that the division of property and provision for the support of the plaintiff and the children awarded to her custody, as made by the trial court, was unjust and inequitable.
The established facts in the case which bear upon the question are that the parties were married in 1909, at which time the plaintiff was 17 years of age and the defendant a few years older. They lived together at Richmond, Utah, for about nine years, during which time there were born to them four children, one of whom died. In 1918, a separation occurred, and the plaintiff commenced an action for divorce. About this time another child was born. The action for divorce was dismissed at the solicitation of the defendant and upon his promise to support the plaintiff and her children. For five years thereafter they lived separate and apart from each other at Richmond, Utah. During this period the defendant furnished a house and contributed $ 60 per month for the support of his wife and children. In 1923, the plaintiff and four children, with the consent and approval of the defendant, removed to Logan. There a reconciliation took place, and they lived together for about two years, when their troubles broke out afresh and they again separated. The defendant took with him one of the children, a boy 12 or 13 years of age, and returned to Richmond, leaving the plaintiff with the other three children, a girl about 16, a girl 10, and a boy aged 8 years, living at Logan. Thus the family was situated at the time of the trial. The decree awarded the custody of the children to the parents, respectively, with whom they were then living.
There was undisputed evidence that the reasonable cost of supporting the plaintiff and her three children at Logan was about $ 120 per month, and that the plaintiff was able to and did earn about $ 20 per month by sewing. The plaintiff had no property of her own. The defendant's property, as found by the court, consisted of a house and lot in Richmond, Utah, of the value of $ 2,250, a 100-acre tract of land in Lewiston, Utah, of the value of $ 15,000, a 101.38-acre tract of land in Lewiston, Utah, of the value of $ 7,000, and personal property consisting of horses and farming machinery of the value of $ 1,500, and household furniture of the value of $ 600. A Packard automobile owned by defendant, costing $ 3,000, and upon the purchase price of which the defendant owed $ 600, was omitted from the court's findings. The defendant's indebtedness amounted to $ 5,100.
The court found that the average annual income from the defendant's real estate, after the payment of taxes and expenses, has been and is $ 1,350, and that none of the real estate had been acquired through the joint efforts of plaintiff and defendant, but that all of the same came to defendant by gift or inheritance from his father.
After finding upon the evidence that the defendant had treated plaintiff with such cruelty as to entitle her to a divorce (which finding is not challenged by defendant), and disposing of the custody of the children as above stated, the court awarded to plaintiff household furniture of the value of $ 600 and required the defendant to pay her $ 75 per month until the further...
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