Leach v. Leach
| Decision Date | 08 April 1952 |
| Parties | LEACH, v. LEACH. |
| Court | Wisconsin Supreme Court |
The plaintiff husband instituted an action for divorce and the defendant wife served an answer and counterclaim in which counterclaim she prayed for a divorce from the plaintiff. Judgment was entered on July 16, 1951, which denied the prayer of the plaintiff husband for a divorce, and likewise denied the counterclaim of the defendant wife for a divorce and ordered the plaintiff to pay support money in the amount of $300 a month, retroactive as of March 11, 1950, and also ordered him to pay $2,000 attorneys' fees and $186.53 disbursements to the defendant's attorneys. The plaintiff has appealed from said judgment, but makes no claim that it was error for the trial court to have denied a divorce to either party, the plaintiff's objection being to that part of the judgment which requires him to contribute to the support and maintenance of the defendant wife and to pay attorneys' fees and disbursements to the wife's attorneys.
The parties were married at Janesville, Wisconsin, on June 27, 1925, and have two children, Edgar, Jr., born August 27, 1926, and Joyce, born November 28, 1930.
Mrs. Leach was the daughter of a well established and wealthy Janesville family, while Mr. Leach had first come to Janesville as an employee of the General Motors Corporation in 1919. In 1922 he started his own business building temperature controls which business he sold in 1928. Between 1928 and 1931 the family resided at Detroit and Butler, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Leach held important industrial engineering positions. In 1931 the family returned to Janesville. After returning to Janesville Mr. Leach became receiver of the Northern Conveyor Company in liquidating its business, and after the conclusion of the liquidation in 1935 he purchased the buildings and machinery and formed a new corporation under the same name, and owns a controlling interest in the capital stock of this corporation. Under Mr. Leach's able management this business has prospered and his principal source of income is his salary and dividends from such corporation. Mr. Leach's average gross annual income for the ten-year period of 1940-1949 was $24,157.90, and his net worth at time of the trial was $235,722.
Mr. and Mrs. Carle, the parents of Mrs. Leach, had much of their financial resources invested in the J. M. Bostwick and Sons department store and the Bostwick Realty Company. (Mrs. Carle was a Bostwick). In 1936 these two enterprises were experiencing serious financial difficulties and, at the request of his father-in-law, Mr. Leach went on the board of directors of both companies and assumed active management of the store until it was sold in 1943. For several years Mr. Leach devoted a great deal of his time to his management of these two companies in which his wife's family fortune was at stake, frequently bringing the books home with him evenings and working on them then. Through his efforts these companies were placed back in a sound and thriving financial condition and the Carle family fortune saved. Mr. Leach refused to accept any compensation for these services. These facts are mentioned because it was largely through these Carle family investments that Mr. Carle was able to create the trusts which provide Mrs. Leach with the large independent income she now enjoys.
Mr. Carle (Mrs. Leach's father) died in 1941, and Mrs. Leach has an income of at least $7,500 per year from trusts created by her father. At the present time Mrs. Leach is receiving the income from trust assets worth $249,726, but upon the death of her mother, who is now past eighty years of age, she will receive the income from $339,376.
Trouble had developed between Mr. and Mrs. Leach prior to the death of Mr. Carle in 1941, and on several occasions Mrs. Leach told her husband that she hated him and was sorry she ever married him. She also told him that when her father died she was going to leave him. She repeatedly told him after her father died that she was going to leave and on August 14, 1947, she did leave the home of the parties and moved into an apartment in her mother's home across the street from the Leach residence in Janesville, taking with her most of the household furniture and furnishings. She has continued to live in her mother's home. The two children remained with their father in the Leach home, except when the daughter was away at college, and until the son married in 1948 and established his own home, the daughter continuing to reside with Mr. Leach.
The most serious complaint on the part of Mrs. Leach against her husband seems to be that he was too engrossed in his business to care about engaging in social activities with her evenings, but would come home and read his newspaper and listen to the radio and not talk to her or her friends who might call. There is no claim that he ever engaged in any physical violence or abusive language, and the trial court made no finding that she had just cause for leaving the home provided by her husband. The trial court in his decision rendered after trial stated
In 1938 and 1944 Mrs. Leach had undergone very serious operations but made a successful recovery from both. In recent years she had also undergone pshychiatric treatment in hospitals but there was no medical testimony that she was not in reasonably good health at the time of leaving her husband, or at the time of trial. The trial court in his decision commented on the condition of Mrs. Leach's health as follows:
However, there was no finding made by the trial court that the condition of Mrs. Leach's health was such as to require that she live apart from her husband.
Rieser, Mathys, McNamara & Stafford, Madison, for appellant.
Dougherty, Ryan, Moss & Wickhem, Janesville, for respondent.
The $2,000 of attorneys' fees which the judgment required the plaintiff husband to pay to the attorneys of the defendant wife was two-thirds of their total bill for services rendered by them to the wife in the action. There is no claim made that the amount charged was excessive. Inasmuch as the husband instituted the action for the divorce, much of the services rendered by counsel for the wife were necessary in defending the action. It was therefore a matter within the sound discretion of the trial court to require the husband to pay the amount of attorneys' fees and disbursements of counsel for the wife which the judgment required that he should pay, and such determination should not be overturned by this court in the absence of any showing of abuse of discretion.
This leaves as the remaining question, and the one to which most of the briefs of counsel are devoted, that of whether the trial court had discretion to require the husband to pay money for the support and maintenance of a wife who leaves the home of her husband and establishes a separate home for herself where there is neither a showing nor a finding by the court that she did so for just cause attributable to the husband, and she has an independent income of her own ample for her own support and maintenance.
The trial of the action was held in September, 1949, and on March 11, 1950, the trial court rendered a memorandum decision in which it was stated that a divorce would be denied to both parties and the reasons therefor appear in the statement of facts preceding this opinion. This decision further stated that the court would postpone making a determination as to an allowance to be granted the wife for support and maintenance pursuant to sec. 247.28, Stats., so as to give the parties an opportunity to see if a satisfactory arrangement could be reached by agreement. No agreement having been reached on this point by the parties, the trial court on May 18, 1951, rendered a supplemental ruling announcing his decision to require Mr. Leach to pay $300 per month toward the support of Mrs. Leach. In this supplemental decision the trial court stated:
Thereafter, under date of July 16, 1951, formal findings of fact, conclusions of law, and judgment were entered requiring the payment of the $300 per month support money. The findings of fact found that Mrs. Leach 'vacated the home of the parties hereto on August 14, 1947', but contained no finding that the same was for cause. Findings X and XI provided as follows:
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