Beard v. Beard

14 S.W.2d 745, 158 Tenn. 437, 5 Smith & H. 437, 1928 Tenn. LEXIS 172
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 16, 1929
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 14 S.W.2d 745 (Beard v. Beard) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beard v. Beard, 14 S.W.2d 745, 158 Tenn. 437, 5 Smith & H. 437, 1928 Tenn. LEXIS 172 (Tenn. 1929).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Cook

delivered the opinion of the Court.

■Certiorari to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals was denied. We have an application to rehear in which it is stated “this is a Court of last resort, unless there is some means of redress there must necessarily be, in many instances, not only a denial of justice by aright without a remedy.” This- statement is followed by others in which counsel says he is unable to point out the errors of this Court in its action denying the writ of certiorari because no written opinion was filed.

(1) By Chapter 100, Acts of 1925', the Court of Appeals is constituted a Court of final review and determination, except upon petition for certiorari presenting (1) errors of law, or (2) errors of fact where there is nonconcurrenee between the Court of Appeals and the trial Court, or (3) concurrence without any evidence to support the conclusion.

When any of these questions are presented through petition for certiorari and assignments of error and ■brief, thej'- are considered and determined by the Supreme Court after review and discussion in which all the mem *439 bers of the Court participate, and action on such petitions is the action of the Court and not one of its members.

Complainant sued her husband for divorce and chai'ged in the petition that in an answer filed by him to her former divorce suit, in which she was unsuccessful, he falsely charged her with adultery and immorality. The Chancellor and the Court of Appeals found that the charge was made by defendant Whitfield Beard, as alleged in the bill, and that the charge was false. There is material evidence to support the concurrent finding and it is final, not open to review in this Court. Bray v. Blue Ridge Lbr. Co., 154 Tenn., 342; Potts v. Coffman, 146 Tenn., 282.

The publication of a false accusation of adultery by a husband against the wife constitutes cause for divorce. Sharp v. Sharp, 2 Sneed, 446; Lyle v. Lyle, 86 Tenn:, 372; McClanahan v. McClanahan, 104 Tenn., 217.

Concurring on the propositions of law and fact, both Courts declared the wife entitled to a divorce and gave her the homestead.

In respect to the realty out of which the homestead was taken, it was charged in the bill that defendant Beard is a preacher and that while on one of his ministerial excursions he induced his wife to go North with him and while on that trip he deserted her; that before the desertion he endeavored to induce her to join in a conveyance of the real estate in Memphis and after her refusal that he fraudulently connived with defendant Nash and had Nash sue him for $500, and permitted judgment by default before a Justice of the Peace.

It is further charged that in promotion of the scheme, an execution was issued, levied on the real estate owned by defendant Beard and that said real estate, appraised at $2800, was sold and bid off by Charles T. Everts for *440 $550. No homestead was set apart. Notwithstanding the real estate consisted of a number of lots, all the lots were sold.

Upon these facts the complainant sought to have the sale .set aside and to subject the property to a claim for alimony. In the alternative she prayed that the homestead be. vested in her as provided by statute. The sale was not set aside and the decree for divorce did not include alimony within the meaning of Sections 4221-3, Shannon’s Code. But in the decree granting a divorce to the complaining wife, the homestead was vested in her as provided in Section 3810, Shannon’s Code, which reads:

“If the head of a family is married, and.his wife obtain a divorce on account of his fault or misconduct, the title to the homestead shall be vested, by the decree of the Court granting the divorce, in the wife, and, after her death, it shall pass to their children.”

By force of this, statute, when the wife obtains a divorce from her husband on account of his fault or misconduct, and all divorces must rest on the fault or misconduct of the opposite party, the homestead passes to the wife. Jackson v. Shelton, 89 Tenn., 82. The statute is not self-executory. The homestead does not pass to the ;divorced wife unless she asserts the right under the statute in her petition authorizing action of the Court which .is necessary to clothe her with the right given by the statute. Moore v. Ward, 107 Tenn., 731.

The statute, however, is imperative and its mandate must be observed when the wife obtains a divorce under a bill praying that the homestead be vested in her. Under such circumstances it becomes the duty of the Court to vest the homestead in the wife who has successfully prose *441 cuted her divorce suit. Belcher v. Belcher (Tenn.), 57 S. W., 382.

The Chancellor and the Court of Appeals concurred in finding (1) that complainant went out of this State by invitation of her husband and the corollorary of that finding is that she did not abandon her homestead right by her act of leaving, the State (2) that she returned to Tennessee, where both resided, when the divorce suit was filed and right to the homestead asserted; (3) that the husband did not desert the wife as she alleged in her bill but that she left him and. no divorce could be predicated upon the allegation by the wife that the husband was guilty of desertion, but both Courts found that the husband made a charge of immorality and adultery against his wife in his pleading filed in a former suit and that the charge was false and constituted fault or misconduct that entitled the wife to a divorce on that ground.

In view of the authorities cited above, it necessarily followed that the homestead should be vested in the wife. The homestead right is a joint estate in the husband and wife for life. Upon death of either it vests in the survivor. While the right of homestead may be lost by abandonment by husband and wife, or under peculiar circumstances by either of them, neither can dispose of it without consent of the other and it is not subject to execution for the debts of either. Shannon’s Code, 3798.

The Chancellor and the Court of Appeals found that the levying officer did not set apart the homestead before sale under the execution, as required by Section 380,4, Shannon’s Code, and that the sale, as made, could not deprive the debtor or his wife of the homestead, (Hamburg v. Lane, 107 Tenn., 701), and that the sale *442 was subject to their homestead rights (Delt v. Yelton, 103 Tenn., 480), and therefore that Everett, the purchaser at the execution sale, did not acquire the homestead.

The Chancellor, upon this finding1, appointed commissioners who set apart the homestead before the decree vesting title in the wife was entered.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State of Texas v. Granville, Anthony
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2014
Untitled Texas Attorney General Opinion
Texas Attorney General Reports, 2001
Ladd Ex Rel. Ladd v. Honda Motor Co.
939 S.W.2d 83 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1996)
Hathaway v. Middle Tennessee Anesthesiology
724 S.W.2d 355 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1986)
Waldschmidt v. Shaw (In Re Shaw)
5 B.R. 107 (M.D. Tennessee, 1980)
Trimble v. Trimble
458 S.W.2d 794 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1970)
Humphreys v. Humphreys
281 S.W.2d 270 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1954)
Berry v. Berry
232 S.W.2d 352 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1950)
Ludlow v. Life & Casualty Ins.
218 S.W.2d 65 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1949)
Jones v. Mercer Pie Co.
214 S.W.2d 46 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1948)
Black v. Black
203 S.W.2d 174 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1947)
Powers v. L. N.R. Co.
194 S.W.2d 241 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1946)
Hestand Et Ux. v. Johnson
184 S.W.2d 175 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1945)
Swift v. Reasonover
77 S.W.2d 809 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1935)
Lingner v. Lingner
56 S.W.2d 749 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1933)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
14 S.W.2d 745, 158 Tenn. 437, 5 Smith & H. 437, 1928 Tenn. LEXIS 172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beard-v-beard-tenn-1929.