Rose v. Rose

495 S.W.2d 524, 254 Ark. 605, 1973 Ark. LEXIS 1559
CourtSupreme Court of Arkansas
DecidedJune 4, 1973
Docket5-6222
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 495 S.W.2d 524 (Rose v. Rose) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Arkansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rose v. Rose, 495 S.W.2d 524, 254 Ark. 605, 1973 Ark. LEXIS 1559 (Ark. 1973).

Opinion

Carleton Harris, Chief Justice.

This is a divorce case. Rachel Mae Rose, appellant herein, and S. C. Rose, Jr., appellee, were married on December 10, 1944, and separated in June, 1968. One child, Sammy Kieth Rose, an invalid, age 18 at the time of the final hearing, was born to the marriage. In July, 1968, Mrs. Rose im stituted suit alleging that the parties had not lived together as husband and wife since June 21, 1968; that Mr. Rose was guilty of adultery and she was entitled to an absolute divorce. Thereafter, on April 9, 1969, the complaint was amended whereby Mrs. Rose sought only a divorce from bed and board. After a hearing, the St. Francis County Chancery Court held that Mrs. Rose was entitled to a divorce from bed and board; granted to her possession of the home owned by the parties, together with household items contained therein and also gave her possession of a Buick automobile; awarded Mrs. Rose $100.00 per week; awarded custody of the minor child to Mrs. Rose and directed Mr. Rose to pay all necessary medical and hospital expenses of the son. Mr. Rose was further directed to pay taxes on the home and premiums on an adequate insurance policy. The court also found that certain certificates of deposit purchased by Rose in his wife’s name were a gift and that Mrs. Rose was entitled to these certificates which had a total face value of $35,400.00. The court held that certificates of deposit in the name of the son were not within the jurisdiction of the court since he was not a party. Mr. Rose was awarded one certificate of deposit in the amount of $10,000, plus interest collected by his wife, .and after Mrs. Rose’s failure to surrender the certificate of deposit to appellant, the court ordered its cancellation by the bank and the issuance of a new certificate. Subsequently, Mrs. Rose amended her complaint and again sought an absolute divorce and the present action was commenced by appellant alleging general indignities and adultery as her grounds for absolute divorce. Appellee filed a cross-complaint seeking a divorce, alleging general indignities, and continuous separation without cohabitation since June 15, 1968. By decree of August 10, 1971, the court granted a divorce on three years separation without cohabitation, but this divorce was not given to either party, and the court reserved for future disposition other issues, which, of course, included property rights. Thereafter, other hearings were held on the question of property rights and the court entered its decree, finding that Mrs. Rose’s prayer for property settlement, because of facts hereafter discussed, should be dismissed. From the decree of divorce and the order just mentioned, appellant brings this appeal. For reversal, it is first asserted that the trial court erred in dissolving the marriage without awarding one of the parties a divorce and that the court was in error in failing to grant Mrs. Rose a divorce on the grounds of adultery.

The seventh ground of our statute on divorce, Ark. Stat. Ann. § 34-1202 (Supp. 1971), provides as follows:

“Where either husband or wife have lived separate and apart from the other for three (3) consecutive years, without cohabitation, the court shall grant an absolute decree of divorce at the suit of either party, whether such separation was the voluntary act or by the mutual consent of the parties and the question of who is the injured party shall be considered only in cases wherein by the pleadings thé wife seeks either alimony under Section 34-1211, Arkansas Statutes 1947, or a division of property under Section 34-1214, Arkansas Statutes 1947,. as hereby amended, or both.”

This section is applicable to this litigation and the court should have rendered a ruling'as to fault. We know of no change in the law that would affect our opinion in Jones v. Jones, 201 Ark. 546, 145 S.W. 2d 748, which involved the question of three years separation and the awarding of property rights. This court said:

“Act 20, after stating that’the court shall grant an absolute decree of divorce at the suit of either party where husband and wife have lived apart from each other for three consecutive years without cohabitation, contains this language: ‘ . . .and the question of who is the injured party shall be considéred only in the settlement of the property rights of the parties and the question of alimony.’
“Clearly (insofar as property may be used to compensate) here is an, express direction that courts ascertain which spouse occasioned the injury resulting in divorce by expiration of time, and that compensation be in proportion to the degree of injury; otherwise the sentence would be meaningless.”

In the litigation now before us, the' court found that Mr. Rose was guilty of adultery and indeed, the charge was not even denied by appellee in his testimony. He admitted adultery with two different women and, in fact, admitted that he was living in adultery at the time of this litigation and the granting of the decree.1 We think the divorce should have been granted to Mrs. Rose on this ground, and we so hold. While Arkansas apparently has no cases on the exact point of whether a divorce should be granted specifically to one of the parties, we certainly think, at the least, that this is far the better procedure. In Friedman v. Friedman, 100 So. 2d 167, the Supreme Court of Florida in a well-considered opinion by Justice Thornal, stated:

“The problem will arise only in those cases where both parties seek a divorce such as in the case before us. It will be recalled that the Chancellor merely ‘dissolved the bonds of matrimony,’ without finding the equities prevailing either way and without determining which party had established his or her entitlement to the divorce. In fairness to the Chancellor we should point out that within the confines of our own decisions there appear to be two lines of cases which could lead a trial judge in either direction. It is, therefore, quite understandable that the Chancellor here concluded that he was within the limits of controlling precedents when he found as he did merely dissolving the bonds of matrimony. We think this problem could be of importance in future cases and we, therefore, feel that we should resolve the problem and set the point at rest for the benefit of the Bar and future litigants.
“Admittedly, there is a division of authority around the country. In 17 Am. Jur., Divorce and Separation, Sec. 465, p. 574, it is stated generally that it has been held that a divorce decree does not necessarily have to state the party in whose favor it is granted. To support this statement the authors cite several cases from the Supreme Court of Arizona. This does seem to be the rule in Arizona and possibly some other states. Coming to our own prior decisions we encounter Williamson v. Williamson, 153 Fla. 357, 14 So. 2d 712, where the Chancellor merely divorced each party from the other. On appeal this court declined to reverse the Chancellor by adhering to the general statement of the proposition that the failure of a Chancellor to make specific findings of fact in an equity suit is not reversible error.
“However, we next examine Sahler v. Sahler, 154 Fla. 206, 17 So. 2d 105

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Bluebook (online)
495 S.W.2d 524, 254 Ark. 605, 1973 Ark. LEXIS 1559, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rose-v-rose-ark-1973.