Harris v. Harris

• Decision Date: 26 June 1920
• Docket Number: No. 13584.,13584.
• Citation: 223 S.W. 771
• Parties: HARRIS v. HARRIS.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

223 S.W. 771

HARRIS v. HARRIS.

No. 13584.

Kansas City Court of Appeals. Missouri.

June 26, 1920.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Pettis County; H. B. Shain, Judge.

"Not to be officially published."

Action by J. Mayo Harris against Mettle Harris, in which defendant interposed a cross-bill. Judgment refusing both parties relief, and they both appeal. Affirmed.

Mark A. McGruder, of Sedalia, for plaintiff.

Hoffman & Hoffman and George F. Longan, all of Sedalia, for defendant.

ELLISON, P. J.

Plaintiff brought an action for divorce against his wife, and she answered with cross-bill seeking a divorce from him for his fault. The trial court refused both, and each of them have appealed.

It appears that plaintiff, living in Sedalia is a physician about 60 years of age, and that defendant is 10 years younger and at the time of the marriage she resided in St. Louis. It appears that they had known each other, when young, in another state. They were married in Warrensburg the 10th of June, 1919, and in little more than three months plaintiff filed his petition.

Each party claims that if either established legal ground for divorce the trial court must grant the decree, as it would be compelled to render judgment In any other cause when satisfactory evidence has been produced. Lynch v. Lynch, 87 Mo. App. 32, 36. There is this qualification, or, at least, addition, which should be made to that statement, viz. that if both parties show that they are entitled to a divorce then neither is. Hoffman v. Hoffman, 43 Mo. 547, 549. If each shows good cause, each cuts out the right of the other. So there are two ways in which a trial court's refusal of a divorce for either may be justified, viz. that the evidence supports the cause of both or of neither. The statement of the trial judge made at the close of the evidence indicates that he was convinced of the latter situation, and we have concluded he was right.

Taking plaintiff's case first. He charges indignities, the specification being as follows:

"That defendant has an ungovernable temper and continually nags at and abuses plaintiff, and makes his life a burden on account of her continual quarreling and abuse heaped upon him; that on one occasion defendant, during the month of August, 1919, flew into a rage at plaintiff, abused him, threatened to strike him and to shoot him; that defendant has no affection for plaintiff and tells his friends that she does not love him nor care for him; but that her sole object in marrying the plaintiff was to live with him awhile that she might have an opportunity to sue him for divorce and take from him his property through the courts as alimony; that defendant receives, from her male admirer, letters of loving and affectionate terms, longing for the days when she will have succeeded in her plans to obtain plaintiff's money that she might return again to him in the city of St. Louis; that defendant married plaintiff for the sole purpose of obtaining his property through the courts, and that she has neither love nor respect for plaintiff."

With the exception of a letter, to which we will refer further on, the entire evidence in plaintiff's behalf consists in several losses of temper, connected, in one instance, if plaintiff is to be believed, with an unclean and indecent comparison in regard to money mentioned between them. The charge that she threatened to shoot him, according to plaintiff's own statement, was of no consequence. He had used a profane phrase that something was "damned simple." She accused him of cursing her and threatened to shoot him, jumping up as though to do so, but plaintiff said he knew she had nothing to shoot with. We may state here, as a sample of much of the trivial character of the...