Reed v. Reed

180 P. 43, 40 Cal. App. 102, 1919 Cal. App. LEXIS 79
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 27, 1919
DocketCiv. No. 2048.
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 180 P. 43 (Reed v. Reed) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reed v. Reed, 180 P. 43, 40 Cal. App. 102, 1919 Cal. App. LEXIS 79 (Cal. Ct. App. 1919).

Opinion

FINLAYSON, P. J.

This is an appeal from an order requiring defendant to pay plaintiff a certain amount monthly as alimony for her support pendente lite and another certain sum as suit money to enable her to prosecute the action.

The action was commenced by plaintiff to obtain a divorce. Her complaint, filed January 9, 1915, contained allegations showing her indigent circumstances and defendant’s possession of community property worth several thousand dollars, and prayed for alimony for her support and suit money. On March 22, 1915, defendant answered. On June 16, 1915, plaintiff served and filed a notice that, on June 21, 1915, she would apply to the court to have the cause set for hearing on the issues tendered by her complaint as to alimony pendente lite" and suit money. Thereafter, by consent of both parties in open court, the motion was continued to June 28,1915. On the last-mentioned date the matter again was continued, by consent of both parties in open court, this time to July 2, 1915, on which date the matter duly came on for hearing, witnesses were sworn and testified, and, on July 29, 1915—the matter having regularly been continued to that date—the court made an order directing defendant to pay plaintiff $750 as and for suit money, for the purpose of defraying the ex *104 penses that she may he put to in producing her evidence, taking the depositions of her witnesses, and other expenses connected with the litigation; and likewise directed defendant to pay plaintiff $50 per month for her maintenance, commencing January 9, 1915—the date when the action was brought.

Defendant contends: (1) That the court was without jurisdiction to make the order, for the reason that there was no proper application for alimony or suit money; (2) That there was no evidence showing a necessity for the allowance of $750 as suit money; and (3) That the court had no power to allow plaintiff alimony for her support during the period intermediate to the commencement of the action and the date of her application for an allowance. On the record, as it comes to us, none of these objections is tenable.

1. We think the notice served and filed June 21, 1915, and the subsequent stipulations relative to continuances, together with the issues tendered by the complaint relative to alimony and suit money, were sufficient to empower the court to make the order for suit money and support pendente lite, even if jurisdiction were dependent upon any formal notice. [I]' However, contrary to appellant’s assumption, no notice was necessary. The defendant had appeared in the action, so that the court had acquired jurisdiction, not only of the subject matter of the action, but of the person of the defendant. Having acquired such jurisdiction, the court had the power to order, ex parte, without any previous notice, the payment of any reasonable sum for alimony and suit money. (Mudd v. Mudd, 98 Cal. 320, [33 Pac. 114]; Ex parte Joutsen, 154 Cal. 541, [98 Pac. 391] ; Glass v. Glass, 4 Cal. App. 604, [88 Pac. 734].) “Such order may be made ex parte, and is usually so made.” (Glass v. Glass, supra.) Appellant cites Baker v. Baker, 136 Cal. 302, [68 Pac. 971]. That case can have no application here, for there the court undertook to make an allowance to the wife before it had acquired jurisdiction of the person of the husband, either by service of process or by his voluntary appearance. That it could not do. The obligation of a husband to support his wife is personal, and therefore an order for alimony—in effect a final judgment for money (Sharon v. Sharon, 67 Cal. 185, [7 Pac. 456, 635, 8 Pac. 709])—is a judgment in personam, and void unless the husband has voluntarily appeared in the action or has been duly served with process. (14 Cye. 745.)

*105 [2] 2. It must be conceded, and indeed it is not questioned, that a discretion is vested in the trial court as to the amount to be allowed the wife as suit money to enable her to “prosecute or defend the action” (Civ. Code, sec. 137), and that only a plain abuse of discretion is subject to correction by an appellate court. [3] Where, as here, it is contended that no evidence was adduced at the hearing showing a necessity for the allowance of a particular sum as suit money, it is incumbent upon the appellant to bring up so much of the record as will suffice to show either that no amount whatever should be allowed or that the sum allowed is so excessive as clearly to indicate an abuse of discretion. Here the appeal is taken under the alternative method. Much evidence was adduced in the lower court. The hearing extended over three or four days. The reporter’s transcript covers some two hundred typewritten pages. None of the evidence is printed in the briefs, or in any supplement appended thereto, as required by section 953c of the Code of Civil Procedure, save a very small part designed to show that, under the doctrine of such cases as Sharon v. Sharon, 75 Cal. 1, [16 Pac. 345], and White v. White, 86 Cal. 212, [24 Pac. 1030], the $750 cannot be deemed to include counsel fees, for the reason that respondent’s counsel had agreed to prosecute her action for a contingent fee. But even if the $750 did not include any allowance for counsel fees—and we shall assume it did not—nevertheless it is incumbent upon appellant to print in his briefs so much of the evidence as will enable us to say that there was no necessity for any suit money whatever, or that the sum allowed was so excessive as to amount to an abuse of discretion. This appellant has failed to do. The permission given to an appellant to file a typewritten transcript in lieu of a printed bill of exceptions casts no burden upon the appellate courts to examine the typewritten documents. (California Sav. Bank v. Canne, 34 Cal. App. 768, [169 Pac. 395].)

Though no burden rests upon us to do so, we have looked into the typewritten transcript and there learn that the pleadings tendered issues respecting property rights of considerable value; that it will doubtless be necessary to take the deposition of a witness in Texas, one Paggi, whose deposition was used at the hearing on the motion for alimony; and that this witness has some knowledge respecting appellant’s stockholdings and his general financial condition. The trial court was *106 justified in indulging the inference that, before a trial on the merits, the deposition of this witness should be taken again, and his knowledge of important facts thoroughly probed. If such deposition be taken in Texas upon oral questions and answers—-and it is possible that that course will best subserve the ends of justice—the employment of counsel in Texas, or the traveling expenses of respondent’s present counsel, necessarily will use up quite a considerable part of the total allowance of $750.

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Bluebook (online)
180 P. 43, 40 Cal. App. 102, 1919 Cal. App. LEXIS 79, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reed-v-reed-calctapp-1919.