135 Minn. 179 | Minn. | 1916
The trial court granted plaintiff a divorce from defendant on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment and defendant appeals from the judgment.
He contends: (1) That the court erred in refusing a change of venue; (2) that the evidence fails to establish the charge of cruelly; and (3) that the findings of fact do not justify the conclusions of law.
During their married life the parties resided at Morris in Stevens county. When plaintiff left the family home she removed to St. Paul and thereafter brought her action in Eamsey county. Defendant made a motion for a change of venue to Stevens county on the ground of convenience of witnesses and presented affidavits in support thereof. Plaintiff presented affidavits in opposition thereto. The summons and complaint were served on August 12, 1915. The motion was brought on for hearing on October 2, two days before the opening of the Stevens county term of court, and if granted would have postponed the trial of the case until the March term in that county. The court denied the motion. The determination of such questions rests in the judicial discretion of the trial court, and no abuse of such discretion is shown.
Plaintiff bases her charge of cruelty upon an unvarying course of ill treatment persisted in for years by defendant, and not upon specific acts of violence committed by him. Soon after the marriage he began complaining about the household expenses and demanded that they be cut down. It seems that, instead of furnishing plaintiff money for such expenses, defendant arranged for her to order necessary supplies from the stores, and that the trouble between them had its origin in his habit of berating her for the expense whenever a bill came in. The testimony ’ makes a fair-sized volume, and we shall not attempt to recapitulate or summarize it. The trial court accepted plaintiff’s account of defendant’s conduct as correct, and to indicate the manner in which he treated her we give a few incidents taken from her testimony. Because she wrote fre
We have only the cold record before us. In cases of this nature the trial court who hears the testimony and observes the parties and witnesses has a much better opportunity than we to learn the true situation and reach the real merits of the controversy.' In the present case the testimony in. connection with the conduct and demeanor of the parties so impressed the trial judge that he stated at the close of the trial among other things:
“A wife should-be something more in the home than a useful domestic animal to receive simply food and lodging. While, perhaps, no single act in the course of the years these parties have lived together would be sufficient to constitute what is known as cruel and inhuman treatment, yet aside from the three specific acts of violence which I think are fairly proven by the testimony, the constant and habitual course of treatment by the defendant of his wife, consisting of neglect, and in many instances amounting to contemptuous treatment, carping criticism, habitually applied to her, taking this accumulation of the years it seems to me amounts to one of the most insidious forms of cruelty, when applied to a sensitive woman. As to the results of those things there can be no question in this case. The plaintiff, I think, has been clearly shown to have suffered serious impairment of health.”
An unvarying course of faultfinding, insult and oppression, unrelieved by a pleasant word, and persisted in for years, may become more intolerable than blows, and we find no sufficient ground for saying that the trial court erred in its conclusion.
Plaintiff’s application for an allowance for attorney’s fees in this court having been held in abeyance until this time, it is ordered that she be allowed the sum of $300 therefor, to be included in the judgment for costs and disbursements.
The judgment appealed from is affirmed.