Evans v. Evans

179 So. 2d 320, 278 Ala. 573, 1965 Ala. LEXIS 953
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedOctober 21, 1965
Docket6 Div. 222
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 179 So. 2d 320 (Evans v. Evans) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Evans v. Evans, 179 So. 2d 320, 278 Ala. 573, 1965 Ala. LEXIS 953 (Ala. 1965).

Opinion

COLEMAN, Justice.

The husband appeals from a decree granting to his wife a divorce from the bonds of matrimony and other relief.

The wife had a son, Ricky, sometimes spelled Rickey, by a prior marriage. The testimony indicates that the instant husband adopted Ricky. The parties have two younger children born of the instant marriage.

The court awarded custody of all three children to the wife but gave the husband the right to have the two younger children visit him two weekends each month. As to the oldest child, the decree recites:

“. . . All matters pertaining to the visitation privileges of the Respondent with James Rickey Evans are reserved pending conduct of Respondent.”

The court ordered the husband to pay $25.00 per week, and,

“. . . in addition to this sum the Complainant may have charged to the Respondent the necessary medical, hospital and dental expenses of the two children, Aaron Reese and Julia Renay, and the Respondent is ordered and directed to pay said medical, hospital and dental expenses, which said sums are for the support and maintenance of the said two children.”

The decree further recites:

“SEVENTH: That the Respondent • is hereby enjoined and restrained from going'to or upon the premises where, the Complainant is living with her father and mother, L. R. Rosser and Margaret Rosser, at Pleasant Grove, Alabama, and from making any threats to the Complainant or to the Complainant’s father, L. R. Rosser.”

*575 The husband complains that the decree is not justified by the evidence because the evidence is insufficient to prove cruelty.

The parties first separated in July, 1964. The wife testified that in May of 1964, the husband, at “1:30 in the morning,” started hitting her with “his fist,” that he slapped her once, that she went and laid down on the bed, and then he started hitting her again. She testified that in July, 1964, the husband kicked her with his “steel toed work boots on,” and pushed her up against the ice box; that “He said he would take his belt and whip me.”

The parties separated in July, but went back together before October 4, 1964.

The wife testified that the week before October 4:

“A The other time, I had been resting and I got up and went back in the living room. There was a little boy from down the street that was eating something in the living room with-Ricky and when I come in the living room, Crickett started hollering, ‘Why are you letting them eat on the couch?’ and I told him I didn’t see them until they had started eating, and so I just let them sit there and then he started screaming at Ricky and he j erked him by the arm and he said, ‘You didn’t have any business bringing that little brat in here anyway,’ and the little boy was still sitting on the couch. And I said, ‘He knows he can bring anybody in here he wants to.’
“Q Did he strike him?
“A No, but he grabbed me by the arm and asked me if I was going to give Ricky a whipping, and he kept holding the belt like he was going to use it, and he jerked me around in the living room and then he jerked Ricky around and Ricky fell down.”

She testified that on October 4, the husband 'said he would kill her father and that the husband called his father to bring a gun; that the husband threatened to kill Ricky if Ricky went to the house of the wife’s father.

Apparently, the parties separated October 4, 1964, and have not reunited.

The wife testified that the husband made Ricky “pull his pants off” when he was four and a half years old, and that the husband then whipped Ricky with a “Teamster’s Belt,” which was 36 inches long, “two or three inches wide, and a half inch thick” ; that, after the whipping, Ricky had “bruised places all over his legs and his back, here, where the buckle had cut him on the leg, it was in two or three places.” She said the husband had beat Ricky “Five or six times this year,” using the “same belt”; that the husband accused Ricky of masturbation;

“A Ricky was taking a bath and he went in, said, ‘You had better not do that,’ and I didn’t think Ricky was doing anything, and told him so, and he fussed at Ricky and punched him and Ricky didn’t know what he was talking about. And Ricky started wetting in his pants and on the bed after that.”

The husband himself testified:

“Q Have you ever beat him with a belt so that he was blue?
“A No. I guess I have whipped that baby four or five times in his whole life.
“Q To correct him for some misconduct?
“A Yes, sir.
“Q Have you whipped him with a belt ?
“A Yes, with my belt.
“Q Did you hit him hard enough to leave bruises on his body?
“A No, sir.”

The husband argues that by returning to live with the husband, after the July separation, the wife condoned the prior cruelty *576 and that the evidence of subsequent cruelty is insufficient.

We do not agree. We think that the husband’s conduct in October, in the light of his prior behavior, justified a finding that, from his conduct in October, there was actual violence on the wife’s person, attended with danger to her life or health, or reasonable apprehension of such violence as proscribed by the statute, § 22, Title 34, Code 1940.

“. . . . from a consideration of all the evidence, taken ore tenus, we cannot say that the trial court’s finding in this respect was plainly and palpably wrong. Burleson v. Burleson, 269 Ala. 637, 640, 114 So.2d 887; Hodges v. Beardsley, 269 Ala. 280, 284, 112 So.2d 482; George v. George, 255 Ala. 190, 193, 50 So.2d 744. The decree is entitled to the same weight as if it were a jury’s verdict. Dorsey v. Dorsey, 259 Ala. 220, 225, 66 So.2d 135.” Butler v. Butler, 274 Ala. 352, 353, 148 So.2d 638, 639.

The husband asserts that the court erred in denying him the right to reasonable visitation with Ricky. The husband says that the court must have found that he was fit and proper to have visitation rights with two of the children, “and it is inconceivable that if he was fit and proper to have visitation rights with two of the children that he would not be fit and proper to have the right of reasonable visitation with the third ■child.”

We have outlined the wife’s testimony as to the manner in which appellant had treated Ricky. The testimony was ore tenus. If the trial court believed the wife’s testimony, we are not persuaded that the court was palpably wrong in reserving all matters pertaining to visitation of the husband with Ricky or in not awarding the husband visitation at that time.

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Related

Shelton v. Shelton
376 So. 2d 740 (Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama, 1979)
Ross v. Powell
359 So. 2d 803 (Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama, 1978)
Barber v. Barber
346 So. 2d 970 (Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama, 1977)
Gamble v. Gamble
298 So. 2d 254 (Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama, 1974)
Evans v. Rosser
190 So. 2d 716 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1966)

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Bluebook (online)
179 So. 2d 320, 278 Ala. 573, 1965 Ala. LEXIS 953, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/evans-v-evans-ala-1965.