Best v. Best

214 S.W.2d 806, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 1525
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 20, 1948
DocketNo. 5893.
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 214 S.W.2d 806 (Best v. Best) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Best v. Best, 214 S.W.2d 806, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 1525 (Tex. Ct. App. 1948).

Opinion

STOKES, Justice.

*807 This is a suit for divorce and partition of community property. It was instituted by the appellant, Margie Best, .against her husband, the appellee, Jimmie Best, on the 13th of May, 1947. In her first amended original petition, upon which the case was tried, appellant alleged that she and appel-lee were married July 21, 1927, and lived together as husband and wife until October 31, 1946, when she was forced and compelled to abandon appellee because of his cruel and harsh treatment of her and his improper conduct toward her. The cruel treatment alleged consisted of her charge that in the year 1943, appellee began keeping company with -other women and continued such associations constantly until they separated, showing affections for them openly and in public, spending his money and the savings of appellant and appellee upon them, subjecting himself and appellant to ridicule by the public, and their friends, causing great embarrassment and humiliation to her and the children and causing them great mental suffering and anguish. She , alleged that, when her original petition was filed, she and appellee then owned as their community property $500 in cash, a Ford tractor, an automobile, two trailers, certain household and kitchen furniture and a lease on a farm in Haskell County consisting of 200 acres which they were then farming.

Appellee answered by a general denial and specially denied all the charges -of improper conduct made against him by appellant. He then pleaded a cross action against her in which he charged her with cruel treatment consisting of continuous and persistent false accusations over a period -of about two years to the effect that he was devoting his time and attentions to other women.

The case was submitted to a jury upon special issues in which the jury found that appellee had not kept company with other women; that appellant nagged at him and accused him of keeping company with other women; that such accusations were false and were of such, a nature as to render the further living together of appellant and ap-pellee insupportable. It further found that on July 17, 1947, appellee sold and transferred to his brother-in-law the crops then growing and being cultivated by appellee, together with the automobile, the tractor, cook stove, butane tank and two trailers for the purpose of defrauding appellant and depriving her of her community interest therein. It found the value of all such articles, except the growing crops’, to be $2,-700 and the value of the growing crops, on July 17, 1947, to be $1,400. It further found that the indebtedness of the commu- . nity at that time was $2,300.60; that appel-lee had paid all of the indebtedness; and that he received from his brother-in-law as consideration for the articles and crops sold to him, the sum of $3,000.

The court entered judgment upon the verdict granting a divorce to the appellee and denying a divorce to the appellant. It divided the' rest of the community property equally between appellant and appellee and gave appellant judgment against appellee for $812.20, which was half thfe value of the property and crops sold by him, as found by the jury, after deducting from its value ’the indebtedness of the community paid by the appellee, and allowed appellant an attorney’s fee of $250.

Appellant filed a motion for a new trial which was overruled and she thereupon duly excepted to the judgment, gave notice of appeal and presents the case in this court for review upon two assignments of error. She contends the judgment should be reversed, first, because the evidence upon which a divorce was granted to the appel-lee was not full and satisfactory, as required by art. 4632, R.C.S.1925, and was therefore insufficient to support the judgment, and, secondly, because the finding of-the jury that the value of the crop sold by appellee on July 17, 1947, was only $1,400, when the undisputed evidence showed it eventually sold for the aggregate sum of $8,010, which would have greatly increased their community interest therein, after deducting the landlord’s share and the reasonable expenses of harvesting and preparing them for the market.

Appellee testified that, about two years prior to their separation, appellant conceived the idea that he was paying undue attentions to other women and that she ■began a course of nagging at him about it. *808 He said that her accusations grew more frequent and positive until finally he was met with it every time he came home. He said he tried to explain to her that her accusations were false and without foundation and that he was not devoting his attentions to any other woman but she would not believe him or listen to his explanations and denials and that, after a period of two years in which she persistently and continuously charged him with such improper conduct, he came to the conclusion he could no longer live with her and told her that one of them would have to leave. He said she then left their home in Haskell County and went to Lubbock where she lived until this suit was instituted. He further testified that the accusations were wholly false and without any foundation whatever. He said that he never at any time devoted his attentions to any other woman and that the nearest he ever came to associating with them was to speak to neighbors and friends in a pleasant maimer and talk with them to some extent on occasions when they were thrown together. Although appellant took the witness stand and testified at length, she did not controvert appellee’s testimony, nor detail the circumstances of any occasion when appellee paid undue attentions to any other woman, nor attempt to reveal any conduct of appellee that could form the basis of the accusations which he said she made against him. Moreover, she did not deny she had made the accusations detailed by him. The jury was therefore fully warranted in exonerating the appellee from the charges of misconduct made against him by the appellant.

In some cases the courts have indicated that, where the cruelty alleged and shown does not consist of physical violence or injury, but has reference to mental distress and the relationship of the parties, it must be such as to impair the health of -the injured party. The true test is generally conceded to be, however, whether or not the acts and conduct are of such a nature as to render living together insupportable. It' is now well settled by the authorities that, if the conduct alleged and shown is of such a nature as utterly'to destroy the legitimate purpose and object of the marital relationship, it constitutes cruelty and justifies a cause of action for divorce and a judgment dissolving the marital relations. Dawson v. Dawson, 63 Tex.Civ.App. 168, 132 S.W. 379. Whether or not the treatment of the complaining party is of such nature as to render living together insupportable is a question of fact for the court or jury to determine and a wide discretion is conferred upon them in determining questions of fact pertaining both to divorce and the division of community property. While the grounds upon which the divorce was granted in this case appear from the record to be rather light, the trial judge and the jury had the opportunity of observing the witnesses as they testified and were in much better position to exercise the discretion than is an appellate court which views the case only from the written record.

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Bluebook (online)
214 S.W.2d 806, 1948 Tex. App. LEXIS 1525, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/best-v-best-texapp-1948.