Buck v. Buck

184 S.W.2d 68, 207 Ark. 1067, 1944 Ark. LEXIS 800
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedDecember 18, 1944
Docket4-7490
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 184 S.W.2d 68 (Buck v. Buck) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Buck v. Buck, 184 S.W.2d 68, 207 Ark. 1067, 1944 Ark. LEXIS 800 (Ark. 1944).

Opinion

Smith, J.

On May 24, 1943, in an opinion reported in 205 Ark. 918, 171 S. W. 2d 939, we reversed a decree granting appellee a divorce from appellant. The decree had been awarded upon the allegation and proof of cruel treatment and indignities, under sub-division 5 of § 4381, Pope’s Digest. We held that these allegations had been sufficiently proved to entitle appellee to a divorce, but we further held there had been a condonation by a temporary resumption of the marital relation. These allegations had been denied and in addition the defense had been interposed that appellee was not a resident of the state, as contemplated by the first paragraph of § 4386, Pope’s Digest, which authorizes a suit for divorce upon proof of: “A residence in the state fór three months next before the final judgment granting a divorce in the action and a residence for two months next before the commencement of the action,” but we held that the testimony established this residence, and that the testimony to that effect was practically undisputed. In reversing the decree granting the divorce we remanded the cause with directions to dismiss appellee’s complaint for want of equity.

Thereafter, on November 23, 1943, appellee filed a second suit for divorce and as ground therefor alleged that appellant had committed adultery with one Lewis Dodge, in the city of Quincy, Mass., in 1943. This was a ground for divorce not alleged in appellee’s first suit. The second divorce was granted, and from that decree is this appeal.

A reversal of this decree is urged upon three grounds. First, that appellee was not a resident of this state when he filed this last suit. Second, the allegations of the complaint as grounds for the divorce were not proved. Third, this last suit was barred by the first one. We consider these defenses in the order just stated.

Now appellee was a resident of this state when the first decree was rendered, and the first question presented is whether he had ceased to be when he filed his second suit. Appellee testified at the first trial, as recited in the opinion above referred to, that he expected to reside here permanently, and that he had never changed that intention, but that after obtaining the divorce he decided to visit his mother before enlisting in the United States Army, and that with that intention, he went, not to Portland, Maine, where he had resided before coming to this state, hnt to the city of Quincy, in the state of Massachusetts, where his mother resided; He arrived in Massachusetts and offered to volunteer in the United States Army, and was' enlisted as a private in the United States Army. He was inducted at Camp Devens in Massachusetts, and was sent to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for training, where he resided until November 24, 1943, when he was discharged on account of physical disability, and he immediately returned to this state. He further testified that while visiting his mother in Massachusetts he had two jobs, one for a week in a lumber yard, and the other for two weeks in a clothing store, but both were part time jobs, and neither was intended to be, or was, of a permanent character.

We do not think appellee lost his status as a resident of this state which he had previously established. In the recent case of Kennedy v. Kennedy, 205 Ark. 650, 169 S. W. 2d 876, we said: “In the case of In re Deans, 208 Fed. 1018, Judge Trieber said that the word ‘residence’ was an elastic term of which no exact definition applicable to all cases could be given and that it was generally held that whether a party’s removal constitutes a change of residence depends on his intention in making such removal, or the animus manendi.”

Appellee did leave this state, but he did not return to his former residence in the state of Maine. He visited his mother and as will later appear he had another purpose in making his visit, but it was a mere visit made while contemplating enlistment in the United States Army, a purpose later effectuated; and he did not lose his status as a resident of this state by that enlistment, nor would he have done so however long that service might have continued, unless during its continuance he had formed the intention of becoming a resident of some other state, Kennedy v. Kennedy, supra. The appellee affirmatively shows he had no such intention as he was employed as a teacher in the Fort Smith High School, which he testified was an employment he preferred, although it was less remunerative than other employment he might have obtained.

As to the'ground for, divorce, the testimony is to the following effect. Appellant lived in a two-room apartment in the city of Quincy. She occupied one room, and rented the other' to one Lewis Dodge, a married man, who was not living with his wife, but was renting this room in October, 1942, and had done so for some days prior, thereto. The testimony, which we do not recite, convinces us that Dodge had spent the night of October 4, not in his room, but in that of appellant. The court specifically found this to be a fact, and we think the testimony sustains that finding. A statutory ground for divorce was therefore proved.

The first suit was filed August 21, 1942, and was pending when this act of adultery was committed. The insistence is that as this ground of divorce was not alleged, or relied upon when the first case was heard, it may not now be asserted.

We held in the case of Ball v. Ball, 189 Ark. 975, 76 S. W. 2d 71, that in divorce actions, as in all others, a judgment is final and conclusive upon all questions .which were - or might have been litigated, and among other cases there cited to support this statement was that of Averbuch v. Averbuch, 80 Wash. 257, 141 Pac. 701, Ann. Cas. 1916B, 873, which cites many cases to the same effect.

But the record here does not present the case of one spouse suing another for divorce upon a specific allegation, when other grounds for divorce known to exist were not alleged. It is not contended that appellee was advised of his wife’s infidelity when he filed his first case. Indeed the act of which she was found guilty had not been committed when the first suit was filed. In the case of McKay v. McKay, 172 Ark. 918, 209 S. W. 951, a suit for divorce on the ground of cruel treatment was dismissed, and that decree was pleaded in bar of a subsequent suit brought on the ground of desertion. It was held that a decree dismissing the first suit brought before the cause of action for desertion had accrued did not bar her subsequent suit on the ground of desertion brought after such desertion had continued for the year required by the statute.

The annotator’s note to the case of Renner v. Renner, 127 A. L. R. 674, states the rule to be that a divorce will not be granted for causes arising after the action was brought. Among other cases cited to support this statement is our own Spurlock v. Spurlock, 80 Ark. 37, 96 S. W. 753. In this Spurlock case it was said that the cause of divorce must exist before the commencement of the suit, although it was held competent to prove the relation between the defendant and the co-respondent after the suit had been filed, not as a ground for divorce, but as corroborating testimony as to the improper relations before the suit was filed.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
184 S.W.2d 68, 207 Ark. 1067, 1944 Ark. LEXIS 800, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/buck-v-buck-ark-1944.