Douglas v. Douglas

• Decision Date: 22 October 1890
• Citation: 81 Iowa 258,47 N.W. 92
• Parties: DOUGLAS v. DOUGLAS.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

81 Iowa 258

47 N.W. 92

DOUGLAS

v.DOUGLAS.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Oct. 22, 1890.

Appeal from district court, Woodbury county; GEORGE W. WAKEFIELD, Judge.

Action for divorce, and alimony. Decree for plaintiff, and the defendant appealed.Lutz & Sears, for appellant.

Joy, Hudson, Call & Joy, for appellee.

GRANGER, J.

The ground of the plaintiff's action is cruel and inhuman treatment. The parties were married in 1872, and have resided at Sioux City for 14 years before the commencement of this suit. The specific acts, constituting the alleged cruel and inhuman treatment, are harsh and abusive language, threats, and occasional acts of personal violence. We will not review the testimony at length, nor make extended comments. It abounds with efforts, as is so often true in this class of cases, in attempts to go to the forgiven past to unbury the little incidents that, because experienced and forgiven, should rather sweeten than mar the joys of domestic life, and magnify their importance through or in the light of the later experiences leading to this attempt at separation. An extract from plaintiff's testimony will best indicate the treatment which she claims is such as to endanger her life: “Within the last two years he is somewhat more like a madman than like a sane man at his home. He would come in the house and ask me what I had got to say. I wouldn't speak to him. He would ask me what I had got to say. Would tell him that I had nothing to say except his supper was ready, and that I was glad he had come home to supper, or breakfast, or dinner, or whatever it might be. He said he didn't care a damn about my feelings; that I was lazy, and wasn't good for anything, and I wasn't worth hell-room anyway; that I couldn't be depended upon; that I was crazy; and that he was going to have me before the commissioners as a candidate for the insane asylum. He was most wild and abusive about a couple of times a week. His conduct, when not at his worst, was ugly and abusive. He would come in and swear at me because dinner wasn't on the table or so, a little thing wasn't done about the house, and he would continually swear and rave. Most of the time he had been drinking, I should say. He seemed to be very excited a great deal, most of the time on account of the stimulants he had taken, I suppose. He would commence abusing me, for instance, by asking what I had for supper, and then he would tell me that I didn't have anything for supper; and I would ask him to come in to breakfast, and he would say I didn't have anything for breakfast; and he would curse and swear because I didn't have anything for breakfast or dinner; and he would put on his hat sometimes and go to the office. When he did not go to the office, he would do a great deal of swearing and making his gestures with his fists at me. Oftentimes I would sit down to the table, and he would be in such a rage that he couldn't sit there to eat himself, nor wouldn't let me, and I would get up to go away, and he would set me down in the chair, and stand right over me, and if I would attempt to get up, as I did a great many times, he would stand with his fists right over me, and rave and swear at me. He pushed me into the chair by taking hold of my arms and shoulders, and seemed to be very violent; very much excited. He said he would fight hell out of me. There was no use for me to say anything. I told him I did not want to say anything. He put his fists against my face and head, sometimes twice a week, sometimes oftener. Every day in the week he curses and raves without me seeing any occasion at all. I only wanted him to be quiet, and try to quiet him, but he insisted on raving and raging. He laid hands on me several times,--many times. He would tell me that I couldn't handle him. Nobody could handle him. Mr. Joy could not handle him. He would fight hell out of Joy, and everybody else. I don't know what else he could do but quarrel. He would call me a God damn hellyon, and a God damn bitch, and said I was a fighter. He called me a son of a bitch, and everything of that sort. One Sunday he came home to dinner about four o'clock in the afternoon. I was sitting in the room reading, and he wanted to know what I had got to say because he did not come to dinner. I said, ‘Nothing, but your dinner is ready there on the table.’ He said I had no dinner for him, took hold of me, and as I was leaving the sitting-room he followed me into the little hall, pushed me down on the stairs, and kept me there for a long time,--about three-quarters of an hour,--raging and raving over me, calling me names, saying that I could not fight him, and that Joy could not fight him; that he would do what he pleased, come home when he pleased, and go where he pleased. He put his hands against me, straightening me out on the stairs, leaving no marks, but I was lame for a week. He once took hold of me by my shoulders with his two fists up against me, from which I carried the marks for two weeks, without a reason,--just because he was ugly. He often said he would send me to hell. A year ago last summer he took hold of my shoulders, and jammed me right up against the side of the house. I had black and blue marks for a couple of weeks. It left me prostrated so that I was very nervous and weak. One day, while I was arranging the table, he came up and around to me, shook his fist in my face, and said he would fight hell out of me. I told him to be quiet. I started to go in the other room. He took hold of me and throwed me on the bed. I had a dinner knife in my hand, and dropped it, and when he insisted on throwing me as he did, I said: ‘I will strike you with the knife if you don't leave me alone;’ and in defense I just drew the blood on his hand a very little. He threatened to knock hell out of me if I did not settle down and be a woman. He wanted me to settle down and be a woman. He kept me about an hour on the bed, setting me down every time I would raise. He injured my side by doing so, and broke a slat in the bed. I was lame for three weeks in the spine and neck, and entirely prostrated. His conduct during nights was cross. He would swear and rave, sometimes two hours. He would ask me if I was asleep, why I did not sit up, why I wasn't awake, or why I wasn't asleep. I used to sit up for him, and he would swear on that account, and said he should stay out nights as long as he pleased, and threatened to knock me into hell if I didn't go to bed and sleep. I used to go out of the house to sleep. He came home so enraged, so crazy, that I was afraid to stay.”

It is not, as we understand, and could not well be, claimed but that if the plaintiff's statements, as set out, are true, the treatment of her is so inhuman as to endanger life. With a few exceptions, the statements of plaintiff as to the conduct of the defendant are expressly denied by him in evidence, and in many instances there is no corroborative evidence for either party. It is true that, for some years past, the domestic life of the parties has been so quarrelsome that, if the sunshine of peace has dawned upon it, the fact has not found its way into the record of this case. A reason...