Gay v. Gay

79 P. 885, 146 Cal. 237, 1905 Cal. LEXIS 515
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 7, 1905
DocketL.A. No. 1596.
StatusPublished
Cited by57 cases

This text of 79 P. 885 (Gay v. Gay) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gay v. Gay, 79 P. 885, 146 Cal. 237, 1905 Cal. LEXIS 515 (Cal. 1905).

Opinion

LORIGAN, J.

This is an appeal from an order, made after judgment rendered in favor of defendant, requiring him to pay plaintiff certain amounts of money for her maintenance pending her appeal in the action to this court.

The action was commenced by plaintiff to obtain a divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty. Defendant answered denying the allegations of the complaint, and filed a cross-complaint asking that he be granted a divorce from plaintiff upon similar grounds. Pending the trial of the cause the court made an order requiring defendant to pay plaintiff two hundred and fifty dollars per month for her maintenance, and the cause having been subsequently tried, judgment was entered denying plaintiff’s application for a divorce, and an interlocutory judgment was rendered in favor of the defendant, declaring him entitled to a divorce upon his cross-complaint, and in such interlocutory judgment, among other things, it was decreed that the order theretofore made requiring defendant to pay alimony of two hundred and fifty *239 dollars per month to plaintiff be vacated and set aside. This judgment was entered October 29, 1903.

On January 8, 1904, plaintiff applied to the lower court for an order requiring defendant to pay for her maintenance, pending an appeal in the action, which she represented she intended to take, but which had not actually been taken. This motion was denied without prejudice to its renewal.

Thereafter plaintiff filed and served her notice of appeal from the judgment, together with an undertaking on appeal, and on January 16, 1904, renewed her application for an order for maintenance pending the appeal. Upon the hearing, in addition to other evidence presented upon the motion, was the affidavit of plaintiff which, aside from showing her indigent circumstances, stated (which was not denied) that she had on the third day of December, 1903, filed a notice of intention to move for a new trial in said action; that within the time allowed by law and the extension granted by the court and on January 11, 1904, she had served her bill of exceptions and filed affidavits to be used on motion for a new trial, but that said bill of exceptions had not then been settled and said motion for a new trial had not been then heard; that she had appealed from the judgment and interlocutory decree in good faith and intended to prosecute the same with diligence in this court; and that she was advised by her attorneys that she had good and sufficient grounds for such appeal. Thereafter the court made an order directing the defendant to pay plaintiff for her maintenance, pending the appeal, one hundred dollars on February 15, 1904, and one hundred dollars a month on the 15th of each succeeding month until further order of the court, and then further recited and provided that “it appearing to the court that plaintiff has received no alimony from the defendant since the fifteenth day of October, 1903, under the order of this court dated December 11, 1902, or otherwise, it is ordered that said payments of one hundred dollars a month shall date from the fifteenth day of November, 1903, and the said defendant is ordered to pay to the said plaintiff for her support and maintenance the sum of three hundred dollars, on or before the first day of February, 1904, being the amounts due under the terms of this order for the period from November 15, 1903, to February, 1904.”

*240 This order was made January 29, 1904, and this appeal is taken from the whole thereof.

The right of the court, pending an appeal, to require the husband to pay the wife such an amount as may be necessary for her support during that period is beyond question. (Bohnert v. Bohnert, 91 Cal. 431, and cases cited therein.)

Whether alimony pending such appeal shall be granted is a matter resting in the sound discretion of the court, and its action relative to an application therefor will not be disturbed by this court, save when it appears that such discretion has been clearly abused.

We find nothing in the record which would warrant us in disturbing the order upon any of the grounds suggested by appellant, the most pertinent of which will be referred to.

It is insisted that the record does not disclose that the appeal from the judgment was taken in good faith or that it has any merit. We think it does. Counsel is mistaken in his view that this question of good faith, or merit, is to be determined solely from an inspection of the judgment-roll. It is to be determined from the showing made upon the hearing in the lower court and upon which the order was based. The affidavit of respondent states; that her appeal was taken in good faith, and upon the advice of her attorney that she had good grounds for appeal from the judgment. Her appeal from the judgment is not necessarily to be heard upon the judgment-roll alone. Her affidavit shows that she had filed a notice of intention to move for a new trial, and in support of it had prepared and served a bill of exceptions and filed affidavits. Upon the appeal from the judgment, she will be entitled to use the bill of exceptions settled for use on the motion for a new trial, if she so desires. (Wall v. Mines, 128 Cal. 136; Vinson v. Los Angeles Pacific R. R. Co., 141 Cal. 153.) The lower court had a right to take all these matters into consideration in determining the question of good faith and merit. The respondent was not required to demonstrate that her appeal will be successful; she was only required to show to the satisfaction of the lower court that the appeal was taken in the belief, and upon the advice of her attorneys, that she had good grounds to expect a reversal upon all the record which she would be entitled to present to this court upon such appeal. The fact that the judge of the *241 lower court before whom the case was tried, and who was therefore fully advised of all the proceedings therein, awarded her alimony, is some evidence that he believed there was merit in her appeal and that it was being taken in good faith. If he believed otherwise, he would have denied the motion. In Bohnert v. Bohnert, 91 Cal. 431, there was not as strong a showing, either as to good faith or a meritorious appeal, as appears in the case at bar, and yet in that case it was held that the record disclosed nothing to justify this court in disturbing the discretion in awarding alimony, pending the appeal, exercised by the trial court in that case, and in our judgment there is less warrant for doing so in the case at bar.

And, in passing, it may be said that this court will take judicial notice of proceedings had before us in this case which show that respondent has endeavored, in the apparent good faith with which the lower court found she was actuated in taking her appeal, to have her bill of exceptions settled to be used for all purposes for which it would be available to her, even to the extent of applying for and obtaining a writ of mandate from this court, compelling the judge of the lower court who tried the case, and before whom the matter of settling the bill was pending, and who had refused to do so, to proceed to settle it. (Gay v. Torrance, 143 Cal. 14.)

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Bluebook (online)
79 P. 885, 146 Cal. 237, 1905 Cal. LEXIS 515, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gay-v-gay-cal-1905.