Bigelow v. Bigelow

267 N.W. 409, 131 Neb. 201, 1936 Neb. LEXIS 190
CourtNebraska Supreme Court
DecidedJune 5, 1936
DocketNo. 29574
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 267 N.W. 409 (Bigelow v. Bigelow) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bigelow v. Bigelow, 267 N.W. 409, 131 Neb. 201, 1936 Neb. LEXIS 190 (Neb. 1936).

Opinion

Paine, J.

Anson H. Bigelow, plaintiff and appellee, filed an amended and supplemental petition for divorce in the district court for Douglas county, charging that the defendant had been guilty of extreme cruelty and adultery, and asking that an accounting be had of the property interests of both parties and an equitable division made.

To this an amended answer and cross-petition was filed by Harriet Pearl Bigelow, his wife, the defendant and appellant, absolutely denying all of the charges made by him, and in her cross-petition alleging that the plaintiff had been guilty of extreme cruelty toward her, and charging him with committing' acts of adultery in the state of Iowa and in the state of Nebraska; alleging that she had at all times been a dutiful, obedient, and chaste wife, and asking that an accounting be had of their property rights, [202]*202and that she be granted an absolute divorce, with attorney-fees, together with support and maintenance for the remainder of her life.

A trial was had, lasting many days, and the bill of exceptions is contained in three large volumes. On April 1, 1935, an eight-page decree was entered by the trial court, finding that the parties have resided in Douglas county since their marriage, and that there are no children born of the marriage. The petition of the plaintiff is dismissed. A decree of absolute divorce is granted to the defendant on her cross-petition upon the ground of adultery. The decree found that the market value of the plaintiff’s property was between $30,000 and $35,000, and awarded to the defendant $7,500, to be paid at the rate of $75 a month for the first two years, and thereafter at the rate of $100 a month until fully paid, and gave the defendant a lien on the plaintiff’s share of the proceeds of the sale of certain interests in a mausoleum handled by a trustee; awarded to the defendant “the household furniture and contents, except the library, purely personal belongings, clothing and other paraphernalia of the plaintiff;” allowed the defendant $125 temporary alimony and $750 attorney fees, and made provision in re title to various pieces of property.

Each of the parties immediately filed motion for new trial, and on April 15, 1935, the trial judge filed a memorandum opinion, in which he exhaustively discussed the allegations, charges, complaints, the evidence in support of each, and the evidence in opposition thereto, and overruled each of the motions for a new trial, and upon the same day notice of appeal to this court was given by the defendant, and briefs were duly filed, and the case argued at length and submitted.

There is no question in the minds of the court but that the trial judge was right in finding that the charge of adultery made by plaintiff had not been proved. On the other hand, the. charges of adultery made in the cross-petition, of the wife were fully sustained by the evidence. [203]*203This appeal relates to the property rights of each party, alimony, and attorney fees.

The plaintiff, who was 67 years old at the time of the trial, had been a superintendent of public schools as a young man at several places, among them Greeley, Min-den, and Falls City, Nebraska, Le Mars, Iowa, and seven years in Lead, South Dakota. He graduated from Creighton University Law School in 1912, since which time he has practiced his profession in Omaha. The defendant was a widow with three young children at the time of her marriage to the plaintiff, and was 54 years of agé at the time of the trial.

■ The plaintiff testifies that he first met the defendant about 1909, and she testifies that they met in 1910 at Presho, South Dakota, where he was lecturing before •a teachers’ institute. She then took a stenographic course in Denver, and obtained stenographic work in Omaha through the assistance of the plaintiff. .She obtained a divorce from her first husband, Mr. Agnew, but he was not paying the alimony and support money, and the plaintiff endeavored to assist, through an attorney in South Dakota, in collecting mofiey from Mr. Agnew, who had remarried.

■ The plaintiff’s second wife was killed in the Omaha tornado March 23, 1913, leaving him with two children; one, who had married, was by his first wife, and daughter, Lucille, by his second wife, remained with her father and graduated that same year from the Omaha high school. The plaintiff and defendant were married on February 22, 1914, at Mankato, Minnesota, but it was not publicly announced until August of that year, when they began living together, at which time the defendant’s three children were brought to Omaha; they having remained with her divorced husband on a’farm in South Dakota up to that time. The three' children were Portia, who was at that time eleven years of age, lima, nine, and Thomas, seven. At the time of the marriage the plaintiff had a small amount of equipment for a law office, and was in [204]*204debt around $5,000 to his brother-in-law, which debt was-later forgiven. The defendant after her marriage worked as stenographer and clerk in the plaintiff’s law office for something over a year, and at various times thereafter-assisted in the clerical work of the office temporarily. The plaintiff rapidly built up a lucrative law business, and claims to have expended on his wife and her children from $5,000 to $7,000 a year for many years, and in some years, he claims, his. personal and living expenses were as much as $9,000, which is denied by the defendant. Her oldest daughter graduated from the Central High School, then attended the University of Wisconsin, and then the Randolph Macon Women’s College in Roanoke, Virginia, and then went to New York City and took special dancing lessons, and then was married and came to Omaha with her husband; lived in an apartment until a baby was born, and this grandchild lived with the plaintiff and defendant in their home until it was nearly six years of age. Portia got employment on the stage, was divorced from her husband, and then remarried. The second daughter, lima, and son, Tom, graduated from the Central High School and then were sent to various other schools, all at the expense of the plaintiff. The plaintiff treated the three children of the defendant as his own, and spent large sums of money on their support and education, treating them with the same liberality as he did his own children. Exhibit 123 is an itemized property statement, given by the plaintiff to the Omaha National Bank, showing his net worth to be $178,157.04 on May 21, 1930.

Something over ten years after their marriage, serious difficulties first began to arise over money matters, and the defendant complained that he was giving his younger daughter too much money. The defendant then began going to the plaintiff’s office in his absence, examining the records and books in an endeavor to ascertain the sources of his income and the full amount thereof, and in going through his files discovered letters from women [205]*205clients and friends, some of which were couched in endearing terms, and which the defendant abstracted from his files, and a large number of such exhibits she introduced in evidence.

The principal contention of the defendant in this court is that the decree of the trial court deprived her of a one-tenth interest in the valuable mausoleum property, which had been hers for a period of approximately ten years, and required her to reconvey the Sioux county land, to which she had also held title for a number of years-.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
267 N.W. 409, 131 Neb. 201, 1936 Neb. LEXIS 190, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bigelow-v-bigelow-neb-1936.