Lefevre v. Lefevre

205 S.W. 842, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 804
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 26, 1918
DocketNo. 7608.
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 205 S.W. 842 (Lefevre v. Lefevre) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lefevre v. Lefevre, 205 S.W. 842, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 804 (Tex. Ct. App. 1918).

Opinion

PLEASANTS, 0. J.

This suit was brought by appellant against the appellee for divorce from the bonds of matrimony and for adjustment of property rights between plaintiff and defendant. The grounds for divorce alleged in the petition are cruel treatment and outrages by defendant of such a nature as to render plaintiff’s living with him insupportable. The petition alleges an indebted- • ness by defendant to plaintiff’s separate estate in the sum of $9,699.96 and asks judgment against defendant for said sum.

Defendant’s answer denies the allegations of cruel treatment and outrages contained in plaintiff’s petition, admits that defendant has received various sums of money from plaintiff’s separate estate, the amounts so received being set out in’ the answer, and sets up various amounts paid to plaintiff by the defendant, and amounts paid for the benefit of plaintiff’s separate estate, for which amounts defendant asks to be credited on the sum found to be due by him to plaintiff. By cross-bill defendant sought a judgment for divorce from plaintiff on the ground of such cruel treatment and outrages by the plaintiff as to render his living with her insupportable.

The trial in the court below without a jury resulted in a judgment against plaintiff on her claim for divorce, and in favor of defendant on his cross-action for divorce. The defendant was adjudged indebted to plaintiff’s separate estate in the sum of $1,-427.09, and in addition to said sum the plaintiff was awarded the securities and funds in the hands of J. K. Hexter, amounting to the sum of $1,970, which the said Hexter had received and is holding in trust for plaintiff and defendant as their respective interests therein should be established. Certain lots in the city of Wichita, Kan., described in defendant’s answer, were adjudged to be his separate property. Six sections of land in Pecos county, Tex., were adjudged to belong one-half to plaintiff and one-half to the defendant. The remaining property involved in the suit, consisting of household and kitchen furniture, was adjudged to be community property. Commissioners were appointed to make partition of the community property and the six sections of land above mentioned. From this judgment plaintiff prosecutes this appeal.

[1] The first assignment of error complains of the ruling of the court refusing to grant plaintiff’s motion for a continuance. The ground upon which the continuance was asked was that three days before the trial defendant had filed an amended answer and cross-bill, setting up many matters which plaintiff was not aware would be put in issue on the trial, and concerning which plaintiff had not had ample opportunity to collect evidence or to investigate; “that the period elapsing between the filing of said answer and cross-action and the time for trial was wholly insufficient to afford her an opportunity to prepare for trial with regard to the new matters set out, or even thoroughly to digest the contents of said amended answer and cross-action; that defendant has had several weeks in which said amended answer and cross-action" might have been filed, and by the filing of which *843 sufficient time, should have been afforded plaintiff in which to prepare for trial, but failed, as aforesaid, to file the same until last Saturday, and that to force her to go' to trial at the present time without mating sufficient preparation with regard to the matters set out in said answer, would be an imposition on her, and would result in a miscarriage of justice, all as will appear by reference to plaintiff’s bill of exceptions No. 1, paragraphs Nos. 2 and 3; that defendant’s first amended original answer and cross-action merely denied plaintiff’s allegations, and alleged his cross-action for divorce, without any mention of property rights, which will appear by reference to said amended answer; but the second amended original answer and cross-action contains many new matters theretofore not brought in issue by the pleadings, and, as apparent therefrom, covering transactions involving the separate and community property of plaintiff, extending over 30 years of their married life, in different states and in many different places, and alleged grounds for divorce not set out in the prior pleading, among the new matters alleging physical violence on the part of plaintiff toward defendant.”

[2] This assignment is without merit. The motion is not statutory, and it cannot he said that the trial judge abused his discretion in refusing to continue the case. It is not even stated in the motion that by a continuance of the cause plaintiff could probably obtain testimony to contradict the alleged new issues presented by the pleading. In respect to the cross-action for divorce, the only new facts alleged in the amended cross-hill were that plaintiff had been guilty of physical violence towards defendant. The only adts of physical violence testified to upon the trial occurred when no one was present, other than plaintiff and defendant and their son, Arthur, all three of whom testified upon the trial. It is therefore manifest that a continuance of the case would not have enabled plaintiff to have procured any additional testimony upon this issue. Besides this, the physical violence was but a small part of defendant’s complaint of cruel treatment, and his testimony as to the alleged acts of physical violence expressly acquits plaintiff of any intention of causing him serious bodily injury. The only complaint made by plaintiff in regard to findings of the court as to her property rights was as to the failure of the court to find that $1,000 of the funds and securities held by J. K. I-Iexter belonged to her separate estate, and the finding of the court that she should be charged with one-half of the debts due by the estate of Guy Lefevre, the deceased son of plaintiff and defendant, which were paid by the defendant, the property belonging to. said estate having been inherited equally by plaintiff and defendant. The finding as to the $1,000 was supported by plaintiff’s testimony, and the holding of the court in regard to plaintiff’s liability for one-half of the debts due by her deceased son is a conclusion of law based upon undisputed facts. It is thus shown that, in addition to the insufficiency of the motion to require the court to grant the continuance, it clearly appears from the record that no injury resulted to plaintiff because of the refusal of the court to grant the motion.

[3] After the motion for continuance was overruled, plaintiff moved to strike out the amended answer and cross-bill of defendant, on the ground that it was filed so short a time before the trial and contained so many and complicated allegations “that it had not been possible thoroughly to digest the contents of the same and prepare for trial on the matters therein set out.” While the answer is lengthy, probably unnecessarily long in its enumeration of the many aggravating acts and words of plaintiff towards defendant, there is nothing difficult of understanding in any of its allegations. It was filed three days before the trial of the case, and the court would not have been authorized to strike it out on the ground that it was not filed in time. Vernon’s Sayles’ Civil Statutes, arts. 1824, 1825; Boren v. Billington, 82 Tex. 137, 18 S. W. 101; Railway Co. v. Butler, 34 S. W. 756.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
205 S.W. 842, 1918 Tex. App. LEXIS 804, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lefevre-v-lefevre-texapp-1918.