Butts v. Butts
| Decision Date | 08 April 1919 |
| Docket Number | No. 32667.,32667. |
| Citation | 171 N.W. 295,185 Iowa 954 |
| Parties | BUTTS v. BUTTS. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Harrison County; Shelby Cullison, Judge.
Plaintiff brought her action for divorce on the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment. Defendant filed a cross-petition asking a divorce on the ground of adultery. After a full trial on the merits, the trial court granted the plaintiff a divorce, the custody of the two children, with a small amount of alimony. The defendant appeals. Affirmed.Cochran & Wolfe, of Logan, for appellant.
J. A. Murray, of Logan, for appellee.
The parties were married in November, 1913, and lived together as husbandand wife until May, 1917. There were two children, one 3 years, and the other 18 months of age. Plaintiff was 24 years of age and defendant 23 at the time of the trial. It is argued by counsel for appellant that plaintiff's charge of cruelty is based solely on an imputation of unchastity, but the petition alleges that defendant has persisted in abusing plaintiff by calling her vile names and cursing her violently; that he has charged her as being guilty of intimacy with other men, and of her own volition; that he has said he did not think he had married a whore. As said, defendant, in his answer and cross-petition, charged plaintiff with adultery, and by his testimony he sought to establish that fact. By an amendment to petition plaintiff charges this also as a ground of cruelty, and alleges that the charge is untrue. Defendant also argues that all the acts of which plaintiff complains were, after February 10, 1917, the time when defendant claims plaintiff was guilty of adultery with one Babe. Doubtless defendant's charges and conduct in this respect were more pronounced after that date, but there is evidence that some of the acts charged were before. She testifies that at one time he called her a bitch when she wanted him to get up to his breakfast; she don't know how many times he called her that; that he said be would not get up for breakfast and when he finally got up he came in the kitchen and kicked the table over and called her a damned bitch; that he said he didn't know he had married a whore; that he said that one Kirby came to see her; that all this occurred before the Babe incident, except one time; that defendant got mad at her because she did not hear him call her, and threw a hammer through the window, and said to her, “You damned old bitch; if you had been in there, I would have killed you;” that he called her a whore the winter before. She says he would go out in a dark room at night and stand behind her with a gun and make her light matches, saying there might be some man in there; that he would just be cursing me, and I would go and do it. There is more of such conduct, but this is the general nature of it. Plaintiff is corroborated by other witnesses. Defendant denies plaintiff's testimony, and says they had no trouble until February 10, 1917, and other of his witnesses testify that the parties appeared to be living together harmoniously. As to the hammer throwing, defendant says he threw it at the pigs, and the hammer accidentally went through the window, and that he was swearing at the pigs, and not at his wife. He doesn't remember lighting the matches as testified to by her. Defendant and others, including the man by the name of Babe, had been shelling corn at defendant's place on February 10, and defendant went to town about 2 o'clock in the afternoon of that date, and left Babe on the place, and that Babe was not there when he returned at 6 o'clock. Defendant says that when he came in the house on his return the window curtains were down, and that she was rubbing her eyes, and he asked her what was the matter, and she said Babe came in the house and stayed for a time, and he says that the next night she told him that Babe had thrown her on the floor and forced her, and that she told him this voluntarily. Plaintif...
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