Lindenschmidt v. Lindenschmidt

Decision Date14 February 1888
Citation29 Mo.App. 295
PartiesMINNIE LINDENSCHMIDT, Respondent, v. CHARLES LINDENSCHMIDT, Appellant.
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals

APPEAL from the St. Louis Circuit Court, HON. JAMES A. SEDDON Judge.

Affirmed.

A BINSWANGER, for the appellant: A wife forfeits her right to support by abandoning the husband. Williams v Prince, 3 Strob. 493; Angelo v. Angelo, 81 Ill. 255; Allen v. Aldrich, 29 N.H. 73; Brown v. Patton, 3 Humph. 137. Or dwelling separate from him without his consent or fault. Schindel v. Schindel, 12 Md. 314; Rutherford v. Coxe, 11 Mo. 353; Thorne v. Kathan, 51 Vt. 523. She cannot maintain a suit for maintenance and support when she is in fault. Angelo v. Angelo, 81 Ill. 251; Boggess v. Boggess, 4 Dana 307. Or if she left him without proper cause. Slack v. Slack, Dud. (Ga.) 165; Carr v. Carr, 22 Grat. 168. When one party terminates the cohabitation by desertion, the other is not bound to take any steps to restore it. Ford v. Ford, 10 N.E. 475. If a wife leaves her husband and his home, and goes and continues to reside elsewhere, this is, prima facie, an abandonment on her part, and the burden of proof is upon her to show that her going away was not voluntary, but that she was compelled to go by his treatment or command. Starkey v. Starkey, 21 N.J.Eq. 135. Abandonment without good cause, and refusal to provide for and support a wife, is good ground for a decree of maintenance. Hooper v. Hooper, 19 Mo. 355; Miller v. Miller, 14 Mo.App. 420; Cannon v. Cannon, 17 Mo.App. 294. " So long as the husband has committed no breach of matrimonial duty, he is under no obligations to provide the wife a separate maintenance, and she cannot claim it on the ground of her own misconduct." Bishop on Marriage and Divorce, 564. It is against good morals, against public policy and the best interests of society, to enable a wife, for every imaginary, trivial cause to abandon her husband and require him to support her elsewhere. Thorne v. Kathan, 51 Vt. 523; Schindel v. Schindel, 12 Md. 314; Boggess v. Boggess, 4 Dana 307.

HERMAN A. HAEUSSLER, for the respondent: The whole question at issue was one of fact, to be passed on by the trial court, who saw the parties and the witnesses, and heard the evidence. The facts were passed upon and judgment rendered. There was ample evidence to support the finding, under section 3283, Revised Statutes, 1879.

OPINION

THOMPSON J.

This action is brought by a wife against her husband for maintenance. A hearing in the circuit court resulted in a decree in her favor in the sum of $43.35 per month. This was based on the view that she was entitled to ten dollars a week, which was the utmost amount which she claimed. The parties were married on the twentieth of October, 1886, and lived together until the twenty-first of January, 1887, just three months and one day, when they finally separated, under the circumstances hereafter stated. At the time of the marriage the husband was about thirty years of age, and lived with his father's family in a house in St. Louis which had been the family residence for twenty-five or twenty-six years. The business of the father was the keeping of a retail grocery, in a building which was situated across a courtyard from the family residence. The family consisted, besides the newly-married couple, of the father, who was an invalid, and who died soon after the marriage and before the separation; of the mother; of a married sister, her husband and their infant child; and of another sister, unmarried. The defendant fitted up, for the occupancy of himself and bride, a single room on the second floor of the house, which was warmed by a wood stove. The married sister and her husband occupied two rooms in the same house. In an adjoining house lived another daughter of the defendant's family with her husband.

The newly-married couple seem to have got along very well together during the first month, and then dissensions and difficulties sprang up. We do not think it would be a proper exercise of discretion for us to spread out in a judicial opinion the details of these unhappy differences; since there is reason to hope that they may be removed, and that this unfortunate couple may hereafter come together and live together as they ought to do. It is sufficient to say that the record impresses us with the belief that the husband was a quiet, industrious, good-natured, and kind-hearted man devoted assiduously to the business which the death of the father left in his charge--possibly more devoted to the business than to the young wife--and very much under the influence of the members of his own family; that the wife grew unhappy in her surroundings and exhibited some serious faults of temper in her treatment of her husband, which she might not have exhibited under other circumstances; and that the mother and the sisters, as often happens in such cases, may have entertained more or less of a feeling of jealousy toward the newcomer. To omit details, she manifested an unwillingness to remain longer in her present quarters; he, on the other hand, was unwilling to go to the expense of fitting up a separate household establishment, but was willing to furnish three rooms for her on the first floor, where they were to live, and board two of the clerks employed in the store. On the morning on which she left, he seems to have brought about an interview between her and his mother and unmarried sister, with the hope of inducing her to consent to this arrangement. The interview resulted in a quarrel and in the use of hard words, at least by the unmarried sister toward the plaintiff. The plaintiff came down into the store in a state of excitement and appealed to one of the clerks to know what she should do. He referred her to the defendant. The defendant advised her to go home to her mother, and promised to visit her at her mother's house on the following Sunday and make some arrangement for the future. He never kept this promise, and gave, on the witness-stand, as a reason for not...

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5 cases
  • Wyrick v. Wyrick
    • United States
    • Missouri Court of Appeals
    • March 26, 1912
    ...the wife cannot reasonably expect the husband to keep his promises. 21 Cyc. 1602; Spengler v. Spengler, 38 Mo.App. 266; Lindenschmidt v. Lindenschmidt, 29 Mo.App. 295; Elliott v. Elliott, 48 N.J.Eq. 231; Briggs Briggs, 24 S.C. 377. OPINION NIXON, P. J. This was an action by the plaintiff un......
  • Nicholson v. Nicholson
    • United States
    • Missouri Court of Appeals
    • July 2, 1924
    ... ... 161, 13 L. R. A. (N. S.) ... 222; Hall v. Hall, 69 W.Va. 175, 71 S.E. 103, 34 L ... R. A. (N. S.) 758.] ...          Lindenschmidt ... v. Lindenschmidt, 29 Mo.App. 295, was an action by a ... wife for separate maintenance. It appears in that case that ... the wife left the ... ...
  • Cotter v. Valentine Coal Co.
    • United States
    • Kansas Court of Appeals
    • February 11, 1929
    ...Mo.App. 647, 653; Lindenschmidt v. Lindenschmidt, 29 Mo.App. 295; Coulter v. Coulter, 175 Mo.App. 1, 7, 161 S.W. 281.] It is held in the Lindenschmidt case that where a wife lives from her husband with his consent he is bound to support her, but if she refuses to return upon his request she......
  • Coulter v. Coulter
    • United States
    • Kansas Court of Appeals
    • December 1, 1913
    ...abandoned him and he is bound to support her and will remain bound until she refuses to return to him upon his request. [Lindenschmidt v. Lindenschmidt, 29 Mo.App. 295; Dwyer v. Dwyer, 26 Mo.App. The letter written by defendant from Oklahoma shows quite clearly that he did not regard plaint......
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