State v. Dixon

• Decision Date: 13 June 1917
• Citation: 196 S.W. 486,138 Tenn. 195
• Parties: STATE v. DIXON.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

196 S.W. 486

138 Tenn. 195

STATE v. DIXON.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

June 13, 1917

Appeal from Criminal Court, Hamilton County; S.D. McReynolds, Judge.

Eugene Dixon was indicted for nonsupport.Motion to quash the indictment was sustained, and the State appeals.Reversed and remanded.

Wm. H Swiggart, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

Sam E Whitaker, of Chattanooga, for Eugene Dixon.

BUCHANAN J.

Dixon was indicted for that he did "willfully and without good cause, neglect or fail to provide for his wife according to his means, or leave her destitute, or in danger of becoming a public charge."

Chapter 125, Acts of 1915, page 345, denounces such conduct by any husband as a misdemeanor.

By way of defense to this indictment a motion to quash was interposed.The trial court sustained the motion, and the state appealed.

The motion to quash makes the point that the indictment fails to state any offense.This is not well taken.The statute declares conduct by any husband such as is set out in the quotation, supra, to be a misdemeanor, and the indictment in the exact words of the statute charged the defendant with the commission of the offense.

It is next said that the words "without good cause" are not defined, and therefore that the act is fatally uncertain in meaning.We think, however, that no ambiguity exists.The meaning is, without a cause sufficient in law to excuse the failure to provide.Before the passage of this statute a husband was under a duty by the common law to provide for his wife the necessaries of life according to their station, etc.The welfare of the social order requires that the husband discharge this duty, and it is within the competency of the lawmaking department of the state to denounce the failure of the husband to discharges the duty in which the public is interested as a misdemeanor.The words "without good cause," as used in the statute, evidently qualify the word "willfully," and the words "neglect or fail," and we think make it clear that in any case where there is good cause or excuse for the failure to provide for the wife, even if such failure result in leaving her destitute or in danger of becoming a public charge, the husband is not guilty of a violation of the act.

Having arrived at the conclusion that the words "without good cause" mean without a cause sufficient in law to excuse the failure to provide, the act is freed from any charge of fatal uncertainty.

It is clear that the husband is only required to provide "according to his means."If these be employment and earning capacity thereunder, or if they be property real personal, or mixed, the husband is bound to provide for his wife out of these means to the same extent as at common law inasmuch as it is the common-law duty to provide on which the statute rests.But there is nothing in this act to indicate that its terms should be held to apply to a husband who has no employment, and no property of any character, unless it appear that he has dispossessed himself of such means with intent to place himself beyond the operation of the act.The words of the statute indicate that it was not intended to add another burden to the hard lot of a paupered husband, unless he pauperized himself with intent to defeat the operation of the act.The qualifying words employed in the terms of the act show that the mischief which the legislative department intended to prevent was the failure or neglect of a husband to provide for his wife where he was possessed of the means to make suitable provision for her.

Courts of other jurisdictions have reached the conclusion that the phrase "without good cause" in acts similar to ours did not render the act void for want of certainty in the following cases: State v. Williams,136 Mo.App. 304, 116 S.W. 1128;State v. Dvoracek,140 Iowa, 266, 118 N.W. 399;State v. Stout,139 Iowa, 557, 117 N.W. 958;State v. Baker,112 La. 801, 803, 36 So. 703;Commonwealth v. Ham,156 Mass. 485, 487, 31 N.E. 639;Ex parte Smythe, 56 Tex. Cr. R. 375, 120 S.W. 200, 23L. R. A. (N. S.) 854, 133 Am. St. Rep. 976, Ann. Cas. 1912B, 280.

"A statute cannot be held void for uncertainty if any reasonable and practical construction can be given to its language.Mere difficulty in ascertaining its meaning, or the fact that it is susceptible to different interpretations, will not render it nugatory.Doubts as to its proper construction will not justify us in disregarding it.It is the bounden duty of courts to endeavor, by every rule of construction, to ascertain the meaning of, and to give full force and effect to every enactment of the General Assembly not obnoxious to constitutional prohibitions."Sutherland, Stat. Const. (Lewis) vol. 1, § 86.

In State v. Dvoracek, supra, it was said of the words "good cause," used in the statute there under consideration, that such words meant no more than sufficient cause, and that any cause would be "good which affords a legal excuse for not providing," etc.It was also observed in that opinion that if defendant be "utterly without means" and unable to earn them, his neglect cannot well be willful, unless he purposely placed himself in that situation, and that "whether the omission is willful must be determined from the evidence adduced precisely as in any other case."In State v. Williams, supra, the court said:

"The term 'good cause' means such a cause as will authorize a decree for divorce in favor of the husband as against the wife."

In Ex parte Smythe, supra, the court said:

"If the phrase 'without good cause' be held synonymous with the phrase 'lawful cause,' it could not be said to be unduly vague or uncertain."

The other authorities above cited take substantially the same view of the meaning of the phrase "good cause," or phrases of similar import, in the statutes respectively considered.

Defendant relies on the principle laid down in United States v....