Reedy v. Reedy, 39124
| Decision Date | 12 December 1953 |
| Docket Number | No. 39124,39124 |
| Citation | 175 Kan. 438,264 P.2d 913 |
| Parties | REEDY v. REEDY. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court.
1. Under the provisions of G.S.1949, 60-1511, when a husband is granted a divorce by reason of the fault or aggression of the wife, the division of property to be made between the parties, irrespective whether such property has been jointly acquired or is the separate property of the husband, is a matter which rests in the sound judicial discretion of the trial court.
2. A division of property made by the trial court in a divorce action will not be disturbed unless it is clearly shown that there was an abuse of discretion.
A. L. Foster, Parsons, Wm. K. Ong, Parsons, on the briefs, for appellant.
John B. Markham, Parsons, Elmer W. Columbia, and Herman W. Smith, Jr., Parsons, on the briefs, for appellee.
This was a divorce case in which the plaintiff (husband) was granted a divorce for the fault of the defendant (wife). The sole issue presented on appeal is whether the trial court committed error in its division of the property owned by the parties. Neither of the parties complain about that portion of the judgment granting plaintiff the divorce, so we will limit our statement of the essential facts to the pertinent question involved.
At the time of the marriage, May 15, 1943, plaintiff was forty-three years of age and the defendant thirty-three. It was the second marriage for each. He had a thirteen year old daughter and she had a nine year old son by previous marriages. The family established their home on the plaintiff's 160 acre farm where he engaged in farming and also operated a produce business in the town of Chetopa. In the year 1949, they opened a grocery store in Chetopa. They remodeled an apartment over the store for their living quarters and moved from the farm to this apartment. They both worked in the store where plaintiff operated a produce and creamery business in the rear of the store, and defendant worked as a clerk in the grocery store. Both parties worked long hours, sometimes as much as eighteen to twenty hours per day. In addition to defendant's duties in the store, she took care of the household. During the marriage, improvements were made on the store building, the apartment, and on the farmhouse. It would serve no useful purpose to narrate the voluminous evidence produced at the trial. Summarized, both parties labored faithfully in building up a grocery business of over $100,000 gross sales per year, and successfully operating a farm which produced a normal revenue.
The trial court found that at the time of the marriage in 1943, plaintiff had a net worth of $17,350, and defendant a net worth of $450 in cash and certain household goods. At the time of the divorce, the parties had a net worth of $24,153.21.
The court entered judgment restoring to the defendant $450 and certain household goods, and in addition awarded to her an automobile of the value of $1,200 and judgment in the amount of $7,950. Plaintiff was awarded the balance of the property consisting of the farm, farm equipment, store building and fixtures, stock in trade, accounts receivable, bank account and stock in a co-operative, all of the approximate value of $14,500.
Motion for new trial was filed by the plaintiff and overruled. Plaintiff appeals, contending that the judgment awarded the defendant in the division of property was manifestly unjust and unreasonable and constituted an abuse of discretion of the trial court. Plaintiff insists that the trial court gave the defendant more property than she was entitled according to law. G.S.1949, 60-1511, provides in pertinent part as follows:
'* * * If the divorce shall be granted by reason of the fault or aggression of the wife, the court shall order restoration to her of the whole of her property, lands, tenements and hereditaments owned by her before, or by her separately acquired after such marriage, and not previously disposed of, and also the court may award the wife such share of her husband's real and personal property, or both, as to the court may appear just and reasonable; * * *And to such property, whether real or personal, as shall have been acquired by the parties jointly during their marriage, whether the title thereto be in either or both of said parties, the court shall make such division between the parties respectively as may appear just and reasonable, by a division of the...
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