1 Colo. App. 281 | Colo. Ct. App. | 1892
This proceeding by Mrs. Williams, the plaintiff in error, to obtain a divorce from her husband, is rested on the statutory ground of extreme cruelty. The parties intermarried in July, 1888. They came to Denver in August, 1889, and this suit was brought on the 23d day of November of that year. The bill contains much irrelevant matter relating to the married life of the parties prior to their coming to the state, though no acts of cruelty are charged save what were committed subsequent to that time. These allegations of the complaint, and the testimony offered
In stating the proof of the charge the wife’s statements will be accepted, though much of it is met by the husband’s denial. Very much of what will be narrated neither comes within the legal definition of extréme cruelty, nor adds to the force of the two instances of physical abuse which the wife’s testimony supports, but it is given to show the entire case which the court refused to permit to go to the jury. The first suggestion of a quarrel occurred shortly after their arrival at the Windsor, in Denver, and sprung up on a suggestion from Mr. Williams that his wife go to Nevada, to her sister’s. Her refusal begot anger and he threatened to go out and “ paint the town red,” and the disagreement resulted in his going out and coming home drunk. On several occasions he renewed his requests for her to go to her sister’s, sometimes as a suggestion of his own, and again as a necessity because his mother insisted on it. There was no other sort of abuse or indignity shown the wife, save during a quarrel in their California street home, when he took her “ by the throat ” and choked her. Their version of this occurrence
■ The record will be searched in vain for proof of any other physical abuse, or physical cruelty. It is equally barren of all other evidence of that refined cruelty, which is sharper than the knife, and more brutal than the fist. After coming to the state, the husband seemed to be spurred on by his mother to compel his wife to leave him and go to Nevada. The object is not very apparent, but must have been to lay the foundation for a legal separation, which would be otherwise impossible. It was a purpose, if such it may be called, not always present and by no means continuous.. As man and wife, to the world they lived in apparent harmony. Their quarrels were neither public nor bitter. They only happened when a letter from the mother would arrive egging him on, and urging him to force an end to what was - to .the family apparently a distasteful connection. This is evident from his declarations to his wife after his mother arrived, early in November, and steps had been taken looking to a separation. While negotiations were actually progressing to that end, and lawyers discussing the details, Mr..Williams told his wife that he did not desire a separation, but was. forced to consent to it because of his financial situation, and that he would return to her as soon as he obtained his property from his mother. It would be an idle thing to detail what took place after his mother, Mrs. Williams, arrived in Denver. It was a cruel, bitter, unholy persecution. A weak, vacillating, purposeless son was controlled by a dominating woman, to the end that the tie which bound him might be severed. The few days which covered the negotiation, and culminated in the present suit, must have been sad and distressing. A firm stand for her absolute marital .rights, and
Probably there is no phrase or term known to the law of marriage and divorce which has been so frequently considered, construed and defined, and none which still remains in so much apparent obscurity. This doubtless comes from the circumstances that each case must be decided on its own facts, which in the complexity of human affairs can never resemble any other, rather than from any inherent difficulty in defining the term. The conditions under which society exists, the prevailing ideas concerning the sanctity of the marriage relation, the drift of public sentiment, and the tendency of particular communities concerning it have led courts to broaden or narrow the definition; not in terms, but by that insensible process which comes from holding that to be extreme cruelty in one case, which under slightly varying circumstances is adjudged to be not within the term in another. Though the tide of judicial, definition may thus be said, in some slight degree, to rise and fall, the cases all accept Evans v. Evans, 1 Hag. Con. 35, (4. E. E. R. 310,) as the leading case on this branch of the law. The decision is universally accepted as an accurate exposition of the rule to be followed in this class of cases. The basis on which it rests is conceded to furnish the only unquestionable foundation- on which a decree may be constructed.
The learned jurist declares that “ to constitute legal cruelty there must be reasonable ground to apprehend danger to life, limb, or health.” He proceeds to say: “ This however must be understood, that it is the duty of courts, and consequently the inclination of courts, to keep the rule extremely strict.
It was also said in Lockwood v. Lockwood, 2 Curteis 281, “that there must be either actual violence committed, attended with danger to life, limb, or heal fch, or there must be a reasonable apprehension of such violence. This I apprehend to be the substance of the doctrine laid down in Evans v. Evans."
The whole bodj'- of the law upon this subject, when carefully examined and considered, whether in the cases which have stretched the rule by their application of it to conditions and facts which apparently do not bring the cases within its scope and purview, or in those which can be readily recognized as easily within its limits, coincides with this
Judged by this rule, there is nothing whatever in the case to establish that cruelty on the part of the husband which can be adjudged in the law sufficient to justify a divorce. The case is without proof of any actual violence which can be imagined to have endangered the life or health of the complainant. According to her own testimony, taken as an entirety and as absolutely true, there never was but a single occasion when he laid violent hands on her, and that under the circumstances of a quarrel, and in a manner which, though an indignity to his wife, and a breach of every rule which ought to govern and control the relations between the sexes, cannot be said to be of the sort which must be proven to bring the case within the definition of extreme cruelty under the statute. It has been said, and we think well adjudged, that a solitary instance of cruelty, not of the dangerous and violent kind, ought not to be held to bring a case
It is not necessary to decide whether a single act of violence, sufficient in itself to injure the life of the person upon whom it is committed, would or would not warrant a divorce, because a case of that description might contain another ele-ment, that of a reasonable apprehension of danger in the future, which, coupled with slight circumstances, might justify the court in holding that a case was made out. But Where there is but a single act, wholly unattended by any elements of danger to either life or health, and it is simply an indignity of which no gentleman or well-bred person would be guilty, it must be the law that such an act, or two of them, would not make a statutory case of extreme cruelty which would entitle a party to a decree.
Taking this view of the law and of the plaintiff’s rights, the court below took the case from the jury and granted a nonsuit. The action of the court in this particular is the only remaining error to be disposed of. The power of the court in this respect seems to be well settled in this and other states. It has been repeatedly adjudged that power is vested in the court to determine whether the evidence offered tends to support the allegations of the party in whose.behalf it is introduced. Wherever there is such a complete failure of proof, that the court would be compelled to set aside the verdict as being unsupported by evidence, it clearly has the right to withdraw the case from the consideration of the jury. Proffatt on Jury Trials, § 351; Behrens v. R. R. Co., 5 Colo. 400; Brasher v. R. R. Co., 12 Colo. 384; Savage v. Pelton et al., ante p. 148; Carl v. Ayers, 53 N. Y. 14.
There can be no difference whatever, in the power of the court in the premises, in actions which are brought to sever matrimonial ties, and those which are instituted on other causes, with regard to which under the law the defendant is entitled to a jury trial. If the court has the power and ought to exercise it in the one class of cases, the same right and the same duty must exist in the other. The question is
Affirmed.