Teodora Arana De Villanueva v. Mariano Villanueva

• Decision Date: 06 December 1915
• Docket Number: No. 65,65
• Citation: 239 U.S. 293,36 S.Ct. 109,60 L.Ed. 293
• Parties: TEODORA ARANA DE VILLANUEVA, Appt., v. MARIANO P. VILLANUEVA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

239 U.S. 293

36 S.Ct. 109

60 L.Ed. 293

TEODORA ARANA DE VILLANUEVA, Appt.,

v MARIANO P. VILLANUEVA.

No. 65.

Argued November 9, 1915.

Decided December 6, 1915.

Mr. C. W. O'Brien for appellant.

Messrs. Howard Thayer Kingsbury and Frederic R. Coudert for appellee.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

The decree which the appellant seeks to reverse affirmed one rendered by the court of first instance, rejecting her demand for a divorce from her husband and for a liquidation and partition of the property belonging to the legal community which existed between them. at the outset we say that we think there is no foundation for the suggestion that we are without jurisdiction because of the inadequacy of the amount involved, since the complaint by which the suit was begun alleged the existence of such an amount of community property as to give jurisdiction, and because the affidavit filed for the purpose of the appeal also so establishes, there being no countervailing affidavit and nothing in the record to demonstrate to the contrary. De la Rama v. De La Rama, 201 U. S. 303, 50 L. ed. 765, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 485.

The complaint for divorce and liquidation of the community as it was finally amended, which was filed in 1910, alleged the marriage of the parties in 1867 and the birth of ten children, nine of whom were alive and of age and one of whom was dead, leaving surviving issue. As a basis for the divorce prayed various acts of adultery by the defendant were charged, extending over a period of forty-two years; that is, from 1868, shortly after the marriage, until the bringing of the suit in 1910. The facts thus charged embraced six periods: that first, from 1868 until the filing of the suit with a named person, from which relation it was alleged there had been begotten five children, four of whom were alive and bore their father's surname; the second, with another named person during 1889 and 1890, from which relation there was begotten a daughter who likewise bore her father's surname; the third, with a named person during the year 1891; the fourth with a name person from 1892 until the time the suit was commenced, from which relation it was alleged children also were begotten; the fifth, with a named person during the years 1901 and 1902; and the sixth, with a named person during the years 1903 and 1904. The answer set up a general denial, a special defense that if the acts of adultery alleged were found to have been committed, they were done with the knowledge of the complainant, who had condoned them, and, moreover, that the action was prescribed.

After full hearing the court of first instance found that the defendant had been guilty of adultery with the person named in the complaint in the first period during the years from 1868 until 1900, but that there was no proof of any such adultery having been committed by him with the person named for the ten years preceding the suit, that is, from 1900 to 1910. The court also found that it was established that the defendant had adulterous relations with the person named during the second period, that is, from 1889 to 1890, and that from such relations, as alleged, a daughter named Maria was begotten, but that the relations had ceased years before the bringing of the suit, since the woman named had died long before at a period fixed approximately as the time of the beginning of the American occupation of the islands. The court also found that it had been proved that acts of adultery had been committed with the person named during the fourth period, that is, in 1892 and some time thereafter, but it also affirmatively found that all relations between the defendant and the person named in this period had ceased prior to 1900. It was moreover expressly found that there was no proof whatever offered concerning any of the other acts of adultery charged in the complaint.

Concerning the first period, the court found that the proof left no doubt that the complainant at an early date became aware of the adulterous relations to which that period related, and although she did so, continued her marital relations with her husband and had condoned his infidelity. Indeed, it was found that forgiveness by the wife was clearly established from the fact that during the ten years which had elapsed before the bringing of the suit and after the illicit relations had ceased, the children begotten of such relation were brought into the household with the consent of the wife, and lived as part of the common...