Main v. Main

• Decision Date: 13 January 1915
• Docket Number: 29674
• Citation: 150 N.W. 590,168 Iowa 353
• Parties: JOHN W. MAIN, Appellant, v. JESSIE E. MAIN, Appellee
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

150 N.W. 590

168 Iowa 353

JOHN W. MAIN, Appellant, v. JESSIE E. MAIN, Appellee

No. 29674

Supreme Court of Iowa, Des Moines

January 13, 1915

Appeal from Jasper District Court.--HON. K. E. WILLCOCKSON, Judge.

ACTION for divorce on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment. Petition dismissed and judgment for defendant for support money and costs and attorney fees. Plaintiff appeals. The material facts are stated in the opinion.

Affirmed.

G. M Tripp and W. G. Clements, for appellants.

Healy Burnquist & Thomas, McClain & Campbell, and E. J. Salmon, for appellee.

WEAVER J. DEEMER, C. J., EVANS, LADD and GAYNOR, JJ., concur.

OPINION

WEAVER, J.

The petition filed July 3, 1912, shows that the parties were married on November 16, 1911, and charges that defendant is a person of "very high and violent temper" which she does not try to control; that without cause she curses and swears at plaintiff and applies to him vile names and epithets; that she possesses a revolver and has repeatedly threatened to shoot and kill the plaintiff and that finally on June 3, 1912, she cursed the plaintiff, called him vile names, and drove him from the home and threatened to kill him, and that when thus cast out he took his team and started to find refuge at his farm in the country. Defendant took another horse, pursued and overtook plaintiff, again threatening to kill him, and that seeing her reach for her revolver he submitted to her demand and drove back to the home "to avoid further trouble and to protect his person." On this showing he asks an absolute divorce.

Defendant appeared to the action and before answer moved for temporary alimony and suit money and by agreement of counsel the application was allowed in the sum of $ 250.00, and the same was duly paid. Answering the petition defendant denied all its allegations of abuse and ill treatment, and further alleged that in June, 1912, the plaintiff wilfully and without cause deserted her and has ever since absented himself from her, refusing to live with her though she has often requested him to return to the bosom of his family. Defendant further alleges that plaintiff is the owner of much valuable property and worth at least $ 100,000.00, while she herself is without means to defend the action or for her support. She therefore asks that the petition be dismissed and that she have judgment against plaintiff for alimony and support so long as he continues to live apart from her and that she have general relief.

Replying to the answer plaintiff denied the same and alleges that while he has property to the amount of about $ 100,000.00, he is indebted to the extent of $ 30,000.00.

The trial court denied the divorce and on November 1, 1912, entered a decree dismissing the petition, reserving the defendant's claim for alimony and support for further consideration, and from this decree plaintiff appealed, April 29, 1913. On February 24, 1913, and before the appeal was taken, defendant filed a petition for separate maintenance and suit money, setting up substantially the same allegations made by her answer to the petition for divorce. The matter of said application and defendant's claim for attorneys' fees and suit money came on for hearing before the court on May 6, 1913. Plaintiff's objection that the matter of alimony had been adjudicated by agreement and payment of $ 250.00, as hereinbefore mentioned, having been overruled and additional evidence having been heard upon the value of attorney's services and of the use of the house occupied by defendant, a supplemental decree was entered finding defendant entitled to the relief claimed, awarding her the use of the homestead except a specified room or office therein set apart for the storage of plaintiff's personal effects, and requiring plaintiff to pay her $ 50.00 per month less any sum or sums which may be received by defendant as rentals, should she lease any part of said premises. The costs including attorneys' fees in the sum of $ 800.00 were also taxed to the plaintiff. From this order and judgment plaintiff has also appealed.

The appeal presents two questions for our consideration--the merits of the plaintiff's demand for a divorce and the merits of the defendant's claim for support money and attorneys' fees.

I. A reading of the testimony satisfies us that the trial court did not err in dismissing the petition. At the time of the trial plaintiff was sixty-six and the defendant forty-two years of age. Defendant had been twice married, once widowed and once divorced. Plaintiff had been twice married and twice divorced--each time at the suit of his wife. He had subsequently been defendant in an action for breach of promise and had sought the graces of other women with a fervor not altogether platonic. The parties did not drift into love unconsciously as sometimes happens with younger and less experienced couples. Both knew from the start exactly what they wanted. She wanted a husband with money--or money with a husband. He wanted a wife to adorn his house and insure that conjugal felicity of which fate and the divorce court had repeatedly deprived him. With an ardor the warmth of which was in no manner diminished by the frosts of age, he pressed his suit for defendant's favor for a period of a year and a half, though it is but fair to say the speed of his wooing was held in check by the pendency of the damage suit above referred to, which had been brought against him by another member of the sex which has been the bane of his strenuous life. He visited defendant frequently and had ample opportunity to ascertain her virtues, faults and peculiarities--so far at least as these things are ever visible to a suitor before marriage. In short, they had ample opportunity to become well acquainted with each other and form a fair judgment whether marriage was desirable. Considering their worldly experience and matrimonial trials it is not credible that either believed the other an angel and in this respect it is quite clear that neither was mistaken. Counsel for plaintiff tell us that defendant is an adventuress who came to Colfax where plaintiff resided for the express purpose of "trapping him into a marriage in order that she might secure a portion of his money," and that their subsequent union was thus brought about with an ulterior view to her financial advantage. In support of this claim a woman testifying for plaintiff states that shortly before the marriage she said to defendant, "No woman of our age would marry an old man of seventy unless she married him for money," and that defendant responded, "You are darned right they don't. If there wasn't some money back of old John Main I wouldn't marry him," and that to this remark she added the further information that she came to Colfax at the suggestion of friends who told her she might there trap a rich old widower and that she did come and "set her trap" for plaintiff and "caught him." Waiving the improbability that a wise trapper, such as defendant is said to be, would be bragging of her catch to another woman before the trap was sprung, and accepting the truth of the story, it is very far from affording ground for a divorce. It may show a lack of affection and lay bare the sordid motive which prompts marriages of the kind we have here to deal with, but it is otherwise irrelevant to the...