Clark v. Clark
| Decision Date | 04 November 1957 |
| Docket Number | No. 22602,22602 |
| Citation | 306 S.W.2d 641 |
| Parties | Dorothy A. CLARK, Respondent, v. Wray A. CLARK, Appellant. |
| Court | Missouri Court of Appeals |
Robert S. McKenzie, Jack G. Beamer, Stubbs, McKenzie, Williams & Merrick, Kansas City, for appellant.
George V. Aylward, Francis L. Roach, Kansas City (Edward F. Aylward, Kansas City of counsel), for respondent.
This is appeal by defendant, Wray A. Clark, from the judgment and decree of divorce granted plaintiff, Dorothy A. Clark, by Division 4 of the circuit Court of Jackson County, wherein defendant was ordered to pay plaintiff alimony in the sum of $65 per week, child support in the sum of $20 per week, additional attorney fees of $1,250, and awarded child custody to plaintiff, with specified week-end visitation times and one month's custody, July, to defendant, and from the dismissal therein of defendant's cross-petition for divorce.
The trial was lengthy. The resultant transcript consists of some 435 pages, plus exhibits. It will serve no useful purpose to set out the evidence in detail, and we undertake to spare the reader as many of the particulars of the unhappiness and conflict in this marriage as we reasonably can by setting forth in this opinion only the gist of such of the testimony as bears upon the questions raised on this appeal.
The Clarks were married September 24, 1932, at Clayton, Missouri. He was twenty-one and she was four or five years older. He sold sausage and eggs from door to door. Soon thereafter he worked in his father's shoe polish factory until it closed. He purchased a truck and engaged in the trucking business until 1941. Meanwhile he learned to fly an airplane and served during World War II as a flight instructor. In 1944 he became a pipeline aerial patrol contractor for the Great Lakes Pipeline Company. In 1945 went to work as a commercial pilot for the Ozark Airlines. In 1946 he re-entered the employment of the Great Lakes Pipeline Company as an executive pilot. He still holds this position, and has a gross annual salary of $10,400. He also has $11,497.33 in a bank account, $2,000 in a credit union, $2,000 in corporate stocks, and with plaintiff jointly owns a house worth about $9,000. The Clarks lived in St. Louis Until 1946 when defendant obtained employment requiring him to live in Kansas City. In 1933 their daughter, Dorothy Ann, was born. In 1943 a son, Bill, was born. In 1953 Dorothy Ann married and now resides with her husband. At the time of the trial in July, 1956, Bill was thirteen, and in the fall would be in the ninth grade in a public school.
In support of her allegation that defendant had offered her such indignities as to render her condition in life intolerable, plaintiff adduced evidence to the following effect: She was truly in love with her husband when they married and for some ten years thereafter. Their marital relationship during that time generally was both enjoyable and satisfactory. Her affection for him commenced to fade about the time their son, Bill, was born when defendant got out of the trucking business and bought his own airplane. He then began spending his week-ends on Mosentine Island, and eventually asked plaintiff and their daughter to go along. He would 'dump' them at one end of the island, leave them all day and go visit others on the island. Then in the evening they would go across to the mainland to a tavern, and 'He would consort with some woman there that was drunk all the time, chase her out in the bushes, put cockleburrs down her blouse and come in and just generally humiliate her (plaintiff) in front of everybody.' In their personal relationship, through the years he would press his attentions on her regardless of the time of the month or that she might then be sick. When Bill was about two years old (and about a year before they moved to Kansas City) plaintiff and defendant were having altercations. To aid in their reconciliation defendant invited her to accompany him to a night club in Springfield, Missouri, where he was working for Ozark Airlines. At the night club he ignored her and left her sitting while he danced with another woman. He was drunk and fell down with this other woman in the middle of the floor. All this greatly humiliated plaintiff. Later when she asked him why he treated her that way he said he just did it to punish her, to embarrass her; that he got mad all over again when he saw her. On another occasion, about 1947, he got up from a nap and proceeded to go to the bathroom without closing the door, although this exposed him to plaintiff her daughter and a young man visiting the daughter. Later, when asked by plaintiff why he did it he said it was to embarrass her.
Defendant's new and better paying employment with Great Lakes Pipeline Company necessitated his moving to Kansas City. They had not been getting along and were continuing to have altercations. She was reluctant to move. He gave her the choice of going to Kansas City or getting a divorce. She elected to get a divorce. However, he persuaded her to come to Kansas City, and to give up any divorce action. They purchased their present home on Garfield and moved into it. Defendant would treat her like a child that had to be punished at times if she didn't do the things he required of her. He was dominating and she had to submit her will to everything he wanted done. Several months later, believing that things were not going to work out, she left him and returned with the children to her parents' home in St. Louis where she discussed her problems with an attorney and eventually filed suit for divorce. Meanwhile, he had filed suit for divorce in Kansas City and obtained service on her before her suit was filed. Within a week he came to St. Louis and persuaded her to reconcile and to return to Kansas City. The two divorce actions were dismissed. Their marital difficulties continued. In april, 1953, plaintiff again filed suit for divorce. Their daughter, Dorothy, eloped and married. Defendant threatened plaintiff that he would bring morality charges against Dorothy and her husband unless plaintiff dropped her divorce action. This she did. The following year, comparatively speaking, was one of their more harmonious times. However, it was not free of matrimonial strife. Defendant laid down a specification that she should submit to intercourse on a schedule, such as Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. She objected that love was something you don't schedule. Numerous altercations resulted.
Another series of incidents concerning plaintiff's health began in October, 1952, when plaintiff developed cancer necessitating the surgical removal of a breast. Defendant while visiting her at the hospital would mention some friend of hers who had recently died of cancer. Shortly after she left hospital he berated her as a coward and told her she had to die sometime. When she was in the basement doing some hammering he asked her if she was building her coffin. On another occasion when they were driving along a lonely country road he slowed down, looked at her and said, 'A nice place for a murder, isn't it?' When she was winding up some nylon cord from a parachute and asked him what he would like for her to do with it, he said, 'You better put it aside, you might want to hang yourself some day.' Other incidents testified to were that defendant on numerous occasions cursed plaintiff and called her vulgar and obscene names; that he was hostile to the parents of the children of the neighborhood with whom his son played; that he told people plaintiff was losing her mind and was trying to poison him; that he refused to keep the house in repair and intentionally broke up furniture while angry.
While they were planning a new home at a nearby lake their daughter and her husband, who was being ordered into military service, returned to Kansas City. Defendant asked plaintiff to sign a notarized statement that he had a right to kill her dog if he found it in the proposed new house. When she refused he called off the plan to build the new home. He offended their daughter and their daughter's husband. As a result the daughter left the home in anger for a place of her own to await her husband's return to civilian life. Plaintiff moved out of defendant's bedroom.
Their situation worsened considerably. Defendant night after night endeavored to physically force his attentions on his wife and chase her around from room to room all night. She fought him off. She moved to her son's bedroom and later to a basement room. He kicked in the door of the bedroom, and removed the basement door lock. On September 21, 1954, defendant as usual insisted plaintiff have relations with him. Plaintiff had gone to bed in a separate room with all her clothes on. She endeavored to fight him off. In the ensuing struggle he pulled her hair, pounded her on on the hips and legs, causing bruises, and pulled her off the bed onto the floor and down the hall. He swung her into his bedroom and slammed the door. There the struggle continued. This struggle was witnessed by two neighbor ladies through a window. The next day plaintiff filed this action for divorce. She received temporary allowances for support and attorney's fees. They continued to share the jointly owned house for about a year during which time many additional altercations occurred between them. We do not conceive of any useful purpose any statement of them would serve.
Evidence on defendant's behalf in opposition to plaintiff's petition and in support of his cross-petition was to the following effect: From the beginning of their marriage his wife was cold and distant. She always made him feel guilty when he persisted in having sexual intercourse with her. She often told him she had no love or affection for him and that he could not buy her love. She said she loved her dog more than she did him. She told him she did not have to do a thing for him and he had to provide for her...
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