Eatman v. Eatman

• Decision Date: 10 December 1889
• Citation: Eatman v. Eatman, 12 S.W. 1107, 75 Tex. 473 (Tex. 1889)
• Parties: EATMAN <I>v.</I> EATMAN.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

12 S.W. 1107

EATMAN

v. EATMAN.

Supreme Court of Texas.

December 10, 1889.

Appeal from district court, Hunt county; E. W. TERHUNE, Judge.

This was a suit for divorce by the appellant, Jeffie Eatman, against her husband, T. J. Eatman.

Perkins, Gilbert & Perkins, for appellant.

GAINES, J.

This was a suit for divorce, brought by the appellant against her husband. The alleged ground of the action was cruel treatment. There is no statement of facts in the record, but the trial judge has filed his conclusions of fact and law, and the assignments of error in effect claim that the court erred in determining that, upon the facts found, the plaintiff was not entitled to a decree of divorce. We are of opinion that the learned judge has applied too rigid a construction of the statute to the facts of the case. It has been sometimes held, and more frequently said, under statutes allowing a divorce on the ground of cruelty, that there usually must be some act of physical violence on part of the defendant in order to justify a decree for the complaining party. But we think the weight of authority is the other way. Cruelty is a ground for a decree of separation from bed and board in the ecclesiastical courts of England, and we understand the rule there to be that, if the conduct of the defendant be such as should reasonably be held to threaten an impairment of the health of the wife, a decree of separation will be granted. Our statutes allow a divorce "where either the husband or wife is guilty of excesses, cruel treatment, or outrages towards the other, if such ill treatment is of such a nature as to render their living together insupportable." 1 Sayles, Civil St. art. 2861. Whether or not the use of the words "excesses," "outrages," and "ill treatment" was not intended to extend relief in cases of conduct not strictly cruel, as defined by the English courts, we need not pause to inquire. The language of the statute is borrowed from the Civil Code of Louisiana; and, construing the similar provision of that Code, the supreme court of that state say: "A series of studied vexations and provocations on the part of a husband, without ever resorting to personal violence, might constitute that degree of cruel treatment and outrage which would form a just ground for separation from bed and board." Tourne v. Tourne, 9 La. 452. In Sheffield v. Sheffield, 3 Tex. 79, our own court say: "It cannot be doubted that a series of studied vexations and deliberate insults and provocations would, under our statute, be sufficient cause for divorce, without apprehensions of personal violence or bodily hurt." But, excluding the exceptional case of Wright v. Wright, 6 Tex. 3. in which the cruelty alleged consisted in part of the murder of the plaintiff's son by her husband, we believe that no decision of this court can be found in which a judgment for divorce on the ground of cruelty has been permitted to stand, in the absence of some degree of physical violence, except those in which the husband had accused the wife of infidelity. Jones v. Jones, 60 Tex. 461; Bahn v. Bahn, 62 Tex. 518. This course of decision seems to have led to the conclusions of law announced by the learned judge who tried the case below. But it does not follow that, because no such decision can be found, a case of cruelty sufficient to justify a decree may not exist, in which neither personal violence nor an unsupported charge of adultery is found as an element. In Wright...