181 Ky. 55 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1918
Opinion of the Court by
Reversing.
The appellee and plaintiff below, W. H. H. Smith, brought this suit in the Harlan circuit court against his wife, the defendant and appellant here, Sarah Smith, seeking a divorce from the bonds of matrimony upon the ground that she had been guilty of adultery with J. E. Kirby, Edgar Thomas, J. H. Smith, “and others, whose names are now unknown to the plaintiff.” He charged that because- of the defendant’s unchastity she was an unfit person to have the custody of their children, whose names and ages are Matilda Smith, aged nineteen years; Laura Smith, seventeen years; Noble Smith, fifteen years; Creed Smith, twelve years; Delano Smith, ten years, and Edna Smith, six years. The answer denied the allegations of the petition, except as to the charge of adultery with J. E. Kirby, and in another paragraph defendant pleaded that her conduct with Kirby occurred in the early part of the year 1912, and that plaintiff had full knowledge of it and forgave the defendant and condoned the act, and afterwards lived and cohabited with her as his wife. In a third paragraph, which she made a counter-claim against plaintiff, she relied upon, the two statutory grounds of divorce of (1) cruel and la-
She afterwards, by amended answer and counterclaim, alleged that plaintiff was guilty of living in adultery with one Eula Sergent, alias Eula Howard, and upon the three grounds relied upon in her counter-claim as amended she asked that she be granted an absolute divorce from her bonds of matrimony. Appropriate pleadings denied her allegations, and upon trial, after considerable preparation, the court sustained the prayer of the petition and granted to plaintiff an absolute divorce, annulling the marriage between him and the defendant and dismissed defendant’s counter-claim for the same relief, but with the wife’s character thus blackened he adjudged the custody of the children to the defendant and allowed to her and them the use of a residence in Danville, Ky., where they had been living while the children attended school since August, 1912, and that plaintiff be required to pay for the joint use of the wife and children one hundred and fifty dollars per month, and that plaintiff should pay the expenses of the children in attending school. Afterwards defendant, upon notice, entered a motion to modify the judgment and to allow to her a permanent sum in alimony, which she insisted upon as being fixed at one hundred thousand dollars, and that the attorney’s fee of seven hundred and fifty dollars, which had been allowed to her attorneys in the original judgment, be increased to the sum of ten thousand dollars. That motion was overruled and defendant prosecutes an appeal from that order, as well as from the original judgment, insisting that the court erred under the. facts disclosed by the record in disallowing her alimony in the sum allowed’ for the children, and in fixing the fee of her attorneys at only seven hundred and fifty dollars.
It is scarcely necessary to state that however erroneous the judgment granting the divorce may be in o.ur estimation, there is no appeal from it and it can not be
It therefore becomes necessary to look to the record to ascertain the facts and to determine the rights of the parties. It, in a large measure, portrays the dramatic as well as the pathetic. In 1888 the plaintiff was living with his mother in Harlan county on about five hundred acres of mountain land, a small portion of which was tillable, and it was bountifully supplied with timber upon the surface and minerals under the surface. His mother was old and feeble. There lived nearby a woman who was the mother of some three or four illegitimate children, one of whom was the defendant in this case, and she was twelve years of age. Through some arrangement the defendant went to live with the plaintiff and his mother to assist the latter in doing the household work and perhaps looking after her ailments. She was rather precocious physically and otherwise, and within a short time thereafter the plaintiff, who was then thirty-five years of age, began to show her such kindnesses and attentions as invariably captivate a female child of that age. He would give her presents, consisting of candy and other cheap articles, calculated to arouse her appreciation, and finally his conduct toward her assumed a fondling aspect and resulted in his eventually seducing her. She became the mother of a child when she was only about fourteen years of age. After that their illicit relations became more pronounced until finally they were living in open adultery and at regular periods a new child would be born, until 1899 or 1900, when plaintiff’s mother died, defendant was the mother of five illegitimate children, whose father he was. They were then married and several children were born after the marriage. She continued to live upon the farm, doing not only
In the case of Beeler v. Beeler, 19 R. 1936, it is said in speaking of this character of witness “that but little credit should ordinarily be given to the testimony of a co-respondent who voluntarily testifies against a respondent,” and in Evans v. Evans, 93 Ky. 510, it is said: “So far as this record shows he (the co-respondent) was an entirely willing witness. He does not appear to have been attached or made to testify. It is not even shown that he was subpoenaed as a witness. He was entirely willing to not only destroy the wife, affix a stain to her children and family, but also to testify to conduct degrading to and highly blamable in himself. Such evidence is justly subject to suspicion. It comes in doubtful form.” Text-writers and other courts lay down the same cautionary rule in the admission of the testimony of the character of witnesses under consideration, and under the circumstances we seriously doubt if this witness’ testimony should have been given any weight at all.-
The only other testimony in support of the charge against the defendant comes from the plaintiff’s nephew, J. H. Smith. He lives in Tennessee, and is about the age of the defendant, and has known her all of his life. Some time in the latter part of 1915 he met plaintiff in Middle s~ boro, which, it seems, was by appointment, and plaintiff there said to him “that his (plaintiff’s) wife was running around from one place to another to Knoxville and Cincinnati and whoring it around and he wanted him (J. H. Smith) to help catch her.” This charge was in the face of the fact that no trip by the wife to any of the places mentioned or elsewhere, was proven or offered to be proven after she went with her children to Danville, in 1912. Letters passed between them, resulting in the nephew assuming the role of detective, and, in consideration of an
The excerpt just taken is supported by these cases found in the notes: Taft v. Taft, 80 Vt. 256, 130 A. S. R. 994, 12 Ann. Cas. 959, and Dennis v. Dennis, 68 Conn. 186, 57 A. S. R. 95, 34 L. R. A. 449. So that we find that this witness, who is the only one testifying to any adulterous acts of defendant occurring subsequent to the condonement, labors under the difficulties of (a) not having his credibility certified to or shown in the manner required by the statute; (b) is himself a co-respondent; (c) is a'willing witness, giving his testimony without being brought into court with legal process and being paid for his services; (d) he is an ex-convict, and lastly he is a detective, “employed with the view of procuring evidence by promoting the act of adultery.” There could scarcely be more discrediting facts arrayed against the credibility of his testimony, and when there is added to this the testimony of the defendant and her son that no such occurrence happened, we are bound to conclude that if the trial court accepted the testimony of this witness and upon it convicted the defendant, it was clearly erroneous and unauthorized.
But if it should be admitted that plaintiff’s testimony in its entirety was sufficient to authorize a finding that the defendant was guilty of the adultery charged and that her conduct had been so lewd and lascivious as to prove her unchaste, it would not follow that the plaintiff' should have been granted the divorce which the court gave him, if he himself was guilty of conduct furnishing grounds
“The doctrine which is thus seen to extend through the entire field of our jurisprudence prevails therefore in the divorce law. If in the former it is a little variable and in some respects its exact form and proportions are uncertain, so in the latter there are or have been judicial doubts and conflicts concerning it, and some differences
And again in 349, it is said:
“If we view marriage as a contract, then if a plaintiff comes into court alleging that the defendant has done what entitles him to have the contract pártly or fully set aside by a divorce from bed and board or the bond of matrimony, whereupon the defendant shows that the plaintiff is equally subject to a like decree, whether because of the same form of the breach of contract or any other, the thing complained of on the one side and set up in defense on the other being that the other party has broken the mutual marriage contract, -the plaintiff stands before the court as himself in fault about the same thing for which he asks redress, he does not come into court with clean hands, consequently he is not entitled to relief. And if we substitute the word ‘status’ for ‘contract,’ in this proposition, it will be equally sound in our jurisprudence and in common sense. Such is believed to be the true law of the subject, not derived simply from the decisions in divorce causes, but adhering in our entire legal system.”
Nor is it necessary that the recriminatory acts be of the same character and furnish the same grounds for divorce as those which they are intended to offset, as is shown by the work just referred to, wherein, in section 351, it is said that cruelty is a valid defensive plea to a charge of adultery, and the same is true as to adultery being a bar to a charge of cruelty. Sections 352-355. In other words it is clearly shown by the author of that work to be the law universally recognized, especially by American courts, that any ground authorizing the granting of a divorce may be used by the defendant, by way of a recriminatory charge, to defeat a suit for divorce based upon any other legal ground, and when both parties are shown to be guilty, neither should be granted an absolute divorce. In volume 9, R. C. L. 387, in further substantiation of the doctrine under consideration, the text says:
“It is a general principle of the common law that whoever seeks redress for the violation of a contract resting upon mutual and dependent covenants, to obtain success must himself have performed the obligations on his part. Something analogous to this principle is found
In support of the statement that the doctrine “has become fully established in this country,” the following cases are referred to: Conant v. Conant, 10 Cal. 249, 70 Am. Dec. 717; Gordon v. Gordon, 141 Ill. 160, 30 N. E. 446, 33 A. S. R. 294, 21 L. R. A. 387; Decker v. Decker, 193 Ill. 285, 61 N. E. 1108, 86 A. S. A. 325, and note 55 L. R. A. 697; Christianberry v. Christianberry, 3 Blackf. (Ind.) 202, 25 Am. Dec. 96; Burke v. Burke, 44 Kan. 307, 24 Pac. 466, 21 A. S. R. 283; Day v. Day, 71 Kan. 385, 80 Pac. 974, 6 Ann. Cas. 189 and note; Cumming v. Cumming, 135 Mass. 386, 46 Am. Rep. 476; Morrison v. Morrison, 142 Mass. 361, 8 N. E. 59, 56 Am. Rep. 688; Von Bernuth v. Von Bernuth, 76 N. J. Eq. 487, 74 Atl. 700, 139 A. S. R. 784; Smith v. Smith, 4 Paige (N. Y.) 432, 27 Am. Dec. 75; Mattox v. Mattox, 2 Ohio 233, 15 Am. Dec. 547; Church v. Church, 16 R. I. 667, 19 Atl. 244, 7 L. R. A. 385; Mathewson v. Mathewson, 18 R. I. 456, 28 Atl. 801, 49 A. S. R. 782; Hale v. Hale, 47 Tex. 336, 28 Am. Rep. 294; Hubbard v. Hubbard, 74 Wis. 650, 43 N. W. 655, 6 L. R. A. 58, 12 A. S. R. 878; 39 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1135; Ann Cas. 1912C 24 To the same effect is 14 Cyc. 630-631. In the case of Decker v. Decker, supra, reported in 86 A. S. R. 325, Mr. Freeman has an extended note upon the doctrine of recrimination now under consideration, and on page 336 of that volume he says:
“It is a rule of universal application that in reply to an application for divorce on the ground of adultery of the defendant, he may allege, either by way of recrimination or cross-petition, the commission of adultery by the plaintiff and if the charge is sustained as to both of the parties, the suit must be dismissed, provided, of
This principle we regard as eminently just, for if the spouse who is seeking a release from the bonds of matrimony is himself guilty of the same charge which he makes or of another equally efficacious in dissolving such bonds, he should not be permitted to alter his status and to be relieved of the burdens thereof and to thereby deprive the other spouse of whatever benefits that may accure, either in a social way or from or growing out of property rights, inchoate or otherwise, by a continuance of the relation.
Briefly examining now the charges which the defendant preferred against the'plaintiff, the testimony shows that from an early date the plaintiff’s treatment of the defendant was cruel, rough and wholly inconsiderate. She worked like a slave, and the meager clothing which she and the children received, aside from their every day wear, was purchased principally with money earned from the sale of butter, eggs and other commodities provided by the defendant. On a number of occasions the plaintiff inflicted physical injuries upon the body of defendant, by striking her at least once with a stick and sometimes with his fist, and upon one occasion he pulled out part of her hair. The children were the frequent recipients of their father’s wrath, and when the mother protested she shared their punishment. This continued, according to the testimony of the defendant and three of the children—and denied by no one, since plaintiff did not go upon the stand—until the wife moved with her children to Danville. Plaintiff grew very cold after that time, and upon one occasion before the alleged affair with J. H. Smith, when he was at the Danville home, because some young school children were making a noise in a neighboring yard , he accused his daughters and wife of running a “whore house,” and subsequently wrote letters to his daughters in which the same charge was stated. It is true that the letters were after the alleged affair with J. H. Smith, but according to the authorities, supra, if they were unfounded and malicious they at
About the middle of 1915 Eula Sergent, alias Howard, came to live in plaintiff’s house in Harlan county, in which there also lived a man and his wife with two or three children. The Sergent or Howard woman was a divorced widow, about twenty-three years of age, and Noble Smith, while on a visit to his father that sumillertestified that he saw plaintiff in bed with that woman. Another witness testified that in passing plaintiff’s house he saw through the window plaintiff and the woman caressing each other in plaintiff’s room, and as he thought plaintiff had the woman sitting in his lap. Other witnesses testified that they were seen frequently together about the neighborhood, sometimes riding horse.back and at other times walking. After the woman left plaintiff’s house he was seen frequently about the places to which she moved, engaged in conversation with her, and within one week from the granting of the divorce (a fact which we learn from the motion to modify the .judgment) she and the plaintiff were married. It does not require a keen imagination to surmise that the hiring of the nephew, J. H. Smith, was in preparation for this event, so that plaintiff might be relieved of the bur.den and responsibility of earing for and looking after the children, and at the same time to exchange his tired and exhausted wife for a younger and more attractive woman.
The reputation of Miss Sergent, or Howard, for chastity is assailed by the testimony of a number of witnesses. None of these facts is denied by the plaintiff, as he did not testify, but the woman denies all of them and says that the subject of marriage was never mentioned between them, although, as we have seen, it occurred within
It is therefore ordered that the judgment concerning the allowances to the defendant and her children and to her attorneys be modified, as .herein indicated, and that plaintiff, in addition to furnishing the residence at Danville, be required to maintain it in repair and keep it insured for the use of the defendant and her children until they become of age, with the privilege of the adult ones living with her after that time, with defendant’s consent, and with the privilege of herself occupying it until the further orders of the court, and this to be effectual from the date of the judgment below.
Wherefore the judgment is reversed with directions to enter a judgment consistent herewith.