Wendt v. Wendt
| Decision Date | 15 July 1921 |
| Docket Number | 21658 |
| Citation | 184 N.W. 66,106 Neb. 554 |
| Parties | MILDRED WENDT, APPELLEE, v. ROSE B. WENDT, APPELLANT |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the district court for Cuming county: WILLIAM V. ALLEN JUDGE. Affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
F. D Hunker and A. R. Oleson, for appellant.
Zacek & Nicholson, contra.
Heard before LETTON, DAY and DEAN, JJ., GOOD and RAPER, District Judges.
Mildred Wendt sued to recover damages from defendant for the alienation of the affections of her former husband. She recovered a verdict and judgment thereon of $ 3,000, and defendant appealed.
Plaintiff and Arthur W. Wendt were married January 4, 1917, and lived together about a year and a half. Some time in May, 1918 marital differences arose between them that grew out of the misconduct of defendant, as alleged, whom plaintiff charges with having alienated the affections of her husband. She avers that defendant constantly and persistently forced her attentions and blandishments upon him, and that as a direct result of such attentions her former husband, in July, 1918, deserted her and went to live with defendant and subsequently obtained a divorce from plaintiff. Within four months thereafter defendant and her husband were married at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and within about six months defendant gave birth to a child. Plaintiff alleges that she tried by various means to induce her husband to return to her, and that upon his refusal she became greatly provoked. For this deprivation of the society and comfort of her former husband she prayed for $ 10,000 damages.
Mr. Wendt applied for the divorce in question and his then wife, plaintiff herein, filed a cross-petition. The court found against her on her cross-petition and granted the decree to her husband on the grounds of extreme cruelty. The court, however, awarded the custody of their infant child, Arthur W. Wendt, Jr., to the plaintiff herein. In her petition in the present case plaintiff admits that, "in her constant endeavor to retain the affections of her then husband against the design of the defendant on his affections, * * * the plaintiff did at certain times, while in the heat of passion, assault her then husband and use strong language toward him in her efforts to counteract" defendant's designs. She alleges that the unseemly conduct of defendant, in the premises, so aggravated her that it threw her into a fit of passion, from time to time, and that it was while in this abnormal condition that she attacked her husband.
The defendant's answer herein avers that Wendt abandoned plaintiff because of her extreme cruelty, and denies that defendant alienated the affections of plaintiff's husband, and charges that she lost her husband's affection by her cruel treatment of him. With respect to the wedded life of plaintiff and Wendt it may be said that, except as to a few digressions, it ran smoothly so long as they lived together. Their child, Arthur W. Wendt, Jr., was born February 21, 1918. About March 22, 1918, they bought a home in West Point; both husband and wife contributing to the payment of the purchase price. Wendt, with some assistance from plaintiff's father, bought a garage and there engaged in the automobile business.
The testimony tends to show that the defendant and plaintiff's then husband met some time in May, 1918, and that in that month defendant remarked to plaintiff, in a significant manner, that Mr. Wendt was a very attractive person. This was the first intimation that she had of the defendant's designs upon her husband. She charges that defendant thereafter constantly sought the society of her husband. In July, 1918, she discovered a coolness in her husband's treatment of her, and...
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