Casper v. Casper
| Citation | 510 S.W.2d 253 |
| Parties | Leland Clair CASPER, Appellant, v. Omega Thompkins CASPER, Appellee. |
| Decision Date | 01 March 1974 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court (Kentucky) |
W. Pelham McMurry, McMurry & Livingston, Paducah, for appellant.
Joseph S. Freeland, Paducah, for appellee.
This is a divorce case practiced under KRS 403.110 et seq., the 1972 'no-fault' divorce law (c. 182, Acts of 1972). Only the husband appeals. The principal question concerns the meaning of the words, 'unable to support himself through appropriate employment,' as used in subsection (1)(b) of KRS 403.200, the maintenance statute . A subsidiary question is whether the amount of maintenance directed by the judgment is reasonable.
The parties married in 1946 and separated in 1967. Although the complaint was filed in 1969, the evidence was not taken until 1972 and judgment was entered in 1973. At the beginning, he was a truck driver and she worked as a beautician. They had no property, but eventually he secured employment as a Greyhound bus driver, she discontinued her separate employment, and they were able to accumulate a respectable marital estate which (as divided by the judgment) amounted to the following when they separated in 1967:
Item To Wife To Husband
------------------------ ------------------- -----------------------
1964 Mobile home
and contents $ 6,000
1964 Oldsmobile
automobile 1,800
Savings account 6,130.*
Checking account 2,000.*
1967 Ford
automobile $ 3,000
Credit union
savings account 6,000.
Coin collection 700.
Fishing boat 550.
Stock 730.
Motor bike 225.
------------------- -----------------------
Totals 15,930 11,205 $27,135
* These sums were converted by the wife to her own account when the
separation took place.
At the time of the divorce both parties were approximately 50 years of age. They had no children. He was earning $12,000 to $14,000 per annum with Greyhound. She had done some refresher work at a business school and was earning $2.05 per hour as a clerk-typist at a hospital in Paducah. During the separation of some five years between 1967 and the taking of testimony in 1972 she had continued to live (by herself) in the mobile home, and the changes that had taken place with respect to the accumulated money and property were substantially as follows:
1. Over a period of 18 months during the earlier years of the separation the husband had voluntarily contributed $3400 in cash to the wife which, with another $80 later paid, constituted the total maintenance payments made at any time between 1967 and the date of the judgment.
2. On February 28, 1972, the wife's savings account ($6130 in 1967) had dwindled to $4033. She was not asked what had become of the $2,000 she had drawn from the checking account in 1967. She still had the 1964-model automobile.
3. The husband had sold the fishing boat and motorbike, had traded the 1967-model Ford in on a 1970-model car of the same make, had purchased a motorboat for $9,000 and a pick-up truck for $3500, and had invested $5000 in an eight-room home. His savings with the credit union had increased to $8900, in addition to which he had $100 in one bank and $115 in another. His indebtedness on the truck and boat totalled $8300, for which the monthly installments were $292.40, and he owed $28,875 on the house.
Essentially, in dividing the marital estate the judgment left the respective parties with what each of them had taken or kept in 1967. In addition, the husband was directed to pay the wife maintenance at the rate of $125 per month for 10 years, subject to termination in event of the death of either or the wife's remarriage. The allowance for maintenance was based on findings of fact that the wife was presently employed as a clerk-typist at $2.05 per hour for a 40-hour week, that the husband was earning about $14,000 per annum with Greyhound, and that:
'Neither party is incapable of selfsupport...
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