Jordan v. Jordan

• Court: Colorado Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: HILLIARD, Chief Justice.
• Citation: Jordan v. Jordan, 105 Colo. 171, 96 P.2d 13 (Colo. 1939)
• Decision Date: 23 October 1939
• Docket Number: 14558.
• Parties: JORDAN v. JORDAN.

96 P.2d 13

105 Colo. 171

JORDAN v. JORDAN.

No. 14558.

Supreme Court of Colorado

October 23, 1939

Rehearing Denied Nov. 20, 1939.

In Department.

Error to District Court, City and County of Denver; Henry S Lindsley, Judge.

Suit for divorce by Edwin F. Jordan against Alice T. Jordan wherein defendant filed a cross-complaint and wherein decree was entered for the defendant. To review a judgment granting defendant's petition to vacate interlocutory and final decree, plaintiff brings error.

Affirmed.

Wm Hedges Robinson, Jr., and Sydney E. Shuteran, both of Denver for plaintiff in error.

Harold G. King, of Denver, for defendant in error.

HILLIARD Chief Justice.

On petition of the wife filed therein to vacate interlocutory and final decrees in a divorce case, order entered as prayed.

It appears that March 22, 1922, the parties intermarried; that May 24, 1933, the husband, alleging cruelty, filed complaint for divorce; that May 1, 1935, the wife answered in denial, and in a cross complaint for divorce she charged cruelty; that on the same day, the husband not appearing, trial proceeded on the cross complaint to findings favorable to the wife, on which an interlocutory decree immediately entered; that November 2, 1935, a final decree of divorce was given; that neither party has remarried, nor are the rights of third parties in any manner involved; that October 31, 1938, the wife filed petition as already related, alleging 'That subsequent to the entry of the interlocutory decree and Before the entry of the final decree of divorce herein the plaintiff and defendant became reconciled, and have since continued to cohabit and live together publicly as husband and wife.' Upon the husband's formal denial of the foregoing allegation, the court received testimony on the issue thus presented. At the conclusion of the evidence the court ordered that both decrees, interlocutory and final, be set aside.

The transcript of evidence, which we do not pause to detail convinces us that the relation obtaining between these parties subsequent to the preliminary decree, was as the wife alleged in her petition to have the decrees vacated; and based thereon we conclude the court's order of vacation was warranted. Married couples are supposed to live together, and usually do. Couples not married are supposed to live apart, and that is the normal relation. In that regard, divorced couples are as those never married. Marriage, however solemnized or evidenced, is the result of...