Kivett v. Kivett

312 S.W.2d 884, 1958 Ky. LEXIS 414
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976)
DecidedMarch 21, 1958
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 312 S.W.2d 884 (Kivett v. Kivett) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky (pre-1976) primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kivett v. Kivett, 312 S.W.2d 884, 1958 Ky. LEXIS 414 (Ky. 1958).

Opinion

MONTGOMERY, Judge.

Elsie W. Kivett, by appeal, challenges the correctness of the Chancellor’s determination of the property to be restored to her and failure to award permanent alimony. The divorce was granted to the husband. Pending the appeal, Elsie W. Kivett filed a motion in the Bell Circuit 'Court to set aside the parts of the judgment relating to alimony and property restoration because of newly discovered evidence. CR 60.02. The right to proceed in this manner has been upheld. Wolfe v. Combs’ Adm’r, Ky., 273 S.W.2d 33. This motion was overruled. Her appeal from that ruling has been consolidated with the original appeal.

The parties were married March 2, 1940. Until 1949, they lived in various places in Kentucky and Tennessee. During that period, appellee served forty-four months in the Navy and attended law school. In January 1949, appellee purchased a one-half interest in Cumberland Ford Motors, Inc., in Pineville. They lived there until they separated. In 1952, appellee and his associates in the Pineville business purchased the Harlan Motor Company, Harlan, Kentucky.

Appellant had been gainfully employed approximately all of her married life except for the three years prior to their separation. Part of the time she was the bookkeeper for the Pineville business. The parties are now in their middle forties. They had no children.

In August 1955, appellee attended an auto dealers’ meeting at Kentucky Lake. Appellant accompanied him to visit her people in Murray. Appellee left her in Murray and did not return.

Appellee sued for divorce on October 16, 1955, on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment. Appellant filed a counterclaim in which she sought a divorce on the same ground, as well as alimony and restoration of property. On the original appeal, appellant contends that she is entitled to alimony because the divorce was erroneously granted to appellee and that error was committed in the determination of the property restored to her. On the appeal from the order overruling her motion under CR 60.02, she insists that the newly discovered evidence is sufficient to warrant setting aside the portions of the judgment concerning property restoration and denial of alimony and that a new trial should be awarded on these issues.

The proof to sustain the charge of cruel and inhuman treatment on the part of appellant showed that she drank alcoholic beverages to excess, with accompanying misconduct, which appellee claimed was embarrassing to him. Other proof showed that appellant was cool toward appellee’s parents and that she was quarrelsome, contrary, ill-tempered, and abusive. The witnesses for appellee consisted of members of his family. In the original proceeding, appellant acknowledged by letter and by statement a lack of fault on the part of ap-pellee. This occurred before she learned of appellee’s conduct as shown by the newly discovered evidence.

The depositions of appellant, appellee, and the present Mrs. Charles Kivett, formerly Jean Cowden Dickinson, were taken in support of the motion under CR 60.02. The proof is that Jean Cowden Dickinson had operated a florist shop next door to the business which appellee had conducted in Harlan. He frequented her shop during the two years prior to the Kivett separation. Appellee maintained an apartment in Harlan and spent several nights each week there during the latter part of this period. The day after appellee filed his divorce action, Jean left her husband and went to stay with her parents in Raymond-ville, Texas. She remained there until May 6, 1956, except for a three-day trip back to Harlan in December 1955. The proof was taken in her divorce action on that occasion, and her divorce was granted *886 on February 2, 1956. She obtained a property settlement from her former husband.

The Kivett divorce judgment was rendered on April 5, 1956. Jean and appellee testified that they did not see, or have any communication with, each other from the time she left Harlan in October 1955 until after her return to Harlan sometime following May 6, 1956, when they “happened to meet” at a cafe there. Jean and Charles saw each other a few times but did not “date” or “court”. She returned to Texas on June 6, 1956. Charles “thought” he wrote her one time after her return. About the middle of June, he called her from “somewhere in Georgia” and proposed. They met in New Orleans and were married in Gulfport, Mississippi, on June 25, 1956. Each denied any romantic interest in the other prior to the May 6 meeting.

After the marriage, Jean lived with her parents in Raymondville, .Texas. She did this for “economic” and other reasons, including a desire not to “shock” her parents. She continued to be known by her maiden name. No announcement of the marriage was made. Charles moved to Texas, living first at Harlingen, then Ray-mondville, and upon obtaining employment moved to Brownsville. Harlingen and Brownsville are both near Raymondville.

Appellant went to Brownsville in February 1957, where she remained for some time. While there, she obtained some letters written by Jean to Charles. He identified one as having been received by him in February 1957, a reading of which indicates that it was written shortly before Saint Valentine’s Day and in the spirit of the day. In part, it reads:

“ * * * My darling, did you see the moon tonight ? This time last year I was looking at it and wishing. I’m still wishing, but 50 miles is better than 1550. But any distance that keeps me from you is too much. * * * ”

Appellee and Jean denied that the letter referred to any relationship existing between them in 1956, prior to the granting of the Kivett divorce. Other letters indicate a desire to keep their marriage a secret in Kentucky. They admitted trying to regain possession of the letters but denied appellant’s statement that Jean had threatened her or that Jean had told her “you little fool, you couldn’t see what was going on under your nose all these years; Charlie and I have been in love for two or three years.”

The divorce was granted under KRS 403.020(4) (d), which is:

“Habitually behaving toward him, for not less than six months in such cruel and inhuman manner as to indicate a settled aversion to him or to destroy permanently his peace or happiness.”

All of the proof is inconsistent with any finding that appellant had a settled aversion to appellee. The Chancellor must have found that appellant’s conduct was such as “to destroy permanently his (ap-pellee’s) peace or happiness”. The newly discovered evidence shows that there was a relationship in existence between ap-pellee and Jean prior to his divorce decree. Their association in Harlan, his keeping an apartment and staying there at night, and the quoted letter all indicate that the subsequent marriage did not. follow a casual relationship and it was not a spur of the moment matter based on a whirlwind courtship. Sober, mature people do not enter into the serious contract of marriage in such manner, and this is especially true after each has just become disengaged from such a contract. The evidence as to the conduct of appellee and Jean subsequent to the date of divorce corroborates the establishment and existence of more than a casual relationship between them prior to the divorce.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
312 S.W.2d 884, 1958 Ky. LEXIS 414, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kivett-v-kivett-kyctapphigh-1958.