Goodin v. Goodin

• Decision Date: 01 May 1928
• Docket Number: No. 20207.,20207.
• Parties: GOODIN v. GOODIN.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

5 S.W.2d 697

GOODIN v. GOODIN.

No. 20207.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

May 1, 1928.

Rehearing Denied May 15, 1928.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Audrain County; Emil Roehrig, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Suit by Harry Goodin, an infant, by H. E. Goodin, his next friend, against Reva Goodin, wherein defendant filed a cross-bill. Decree for plaintiff, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

A. C. Whitson and J. M. Bone, both of Mexico, Mo., for appellant.

Barrow & Barrow, of Vandalia, and Ras Pearson, of Louisiana, Mo., for respondent.

BECKER, J.

Plaintiff below was granted a decree of divorce from his wife on the ground of adultery, and was given custody of the one child born of the marriage. The defendant's cross-bill, seeking a divorce on the ground of general indignities, was dismissed. The defendant wife brings this appeal.

The parties to the action were married on February 6, 1924. At the time plaintiff was 18 and the defendant 19 years of age. One child, a girl, born of the marriage, was nearly 3 years old at the time of the divorce. Plaintiff and defendant lived in harmony and happily until February 4, 1927.

Our reading of the record convinces us that the learned trial judge properly held that the defendant had committed adultery on the morning of February 4, 1927. The record discloses that plaintiff and William Barnes were close friends. They were both about the same age, and both worked at the brick plant in the community in which they lived; that for some months prior to February 4, 1927, Barnes had been a frequent visitor at plaintiff's home, which was a fourroom bungalow. Barnes and plaintiff had bought a radio together, which they kept at plaintiff's house. Barnes frequently came over and spent the evening with plaintiff and defendant, enjoying the various radio programs. On frequent occasions Barnes would spend the night, sleeping in the main room of the bungalow, adjoining the room in which plaintiff, his wife, and baby slept. The night that Barnes most usually remained over was Saturday. Plaintiff was in the habit of arising about 5 o'clock in the morning in order to be at the mine by 7, and, upon arising would build a fire in the kitchen range and a fire in the heating stove in the main room, but on Sunday mornings the defendant wife would get up and build the fire preparatory to cooking breakfast, allowing plaintiff to sleep. On the night of February 4, 1927, Barnes spent the night, which happened to be Friday night, and the following morning the wife got up before 5, without waking her husband, and built a fire in the kitchen range and a fire in the main room in which Barnes was sleeping.

According to plaintiff's testimony on the morning in question, he awoke a little before 5, and there was a light burning in the kitchen, but no other light in the house. He listened a little bit and heard "this bed squeaking, so I laid there and went on like I was asleep, and directly I throwed the cover back and walked right in there by the side of them, and there they were, both laying in bed with their arms around each other, and the cover up over them about to their waists. I says, `What does all this mean?' Neither one of them said a word. I says, `There ain't no use in that,' and just reached up and turned on the light, and she throwed the cover back, and came up, and started to throw her arms around me. I said, `No; I'm absolutely done; nothing like that; we can't live together like this.' She asked me to forgive her; said she wouldent do anything like that any more. She said for me to go on to work, and nobody would know anything about it. I says, `No, I won't do that.' I said, `I'll call up your mother and my mother, and tell them what happened.'"

The wife testified that she had gotten up before 5 o'clock and dressed; that she had on her kimona, her house slippers, and stockings; built a fire in the range, put the coffee on, went in and built the fire in the heating stove in the main room, and, "then I went over and set down on the bed with Jack; he put his arm around me and I laid down on the bed by him. I was not under the covers with him, but I was under a cover. I had a cover pulled over me because it was chilly in the room. About that time Harry came in, and the only words he says, he says, `Well, Jack, we have been friends for a long time? Jack says, `Yes; we have.' That is the only word he ever said to Jack, but me, he began cursing me, and told me to get out; he wasn't going to have any more to do with me. He said I could go my way and he could go his; he said all he had to say was that he was going to have Snooky." (Snooky was the pet name for their daughter.)

We quote the following from defendant's...