Tarver v. Tarver

10 Tenn. App. 677, 1929 Tenn. App. LEXIS 66
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedMay 4, 1929
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 10 Tenn. App. 677 (Tarver v. Tarver) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tarver v. Tarver, 10 Tenn. App. 677, 1929 Tenn. App. LEXIS 66 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1929).

Opinion

CROWNOVER, J.

At the outset it is insisted that in the final decree in the chancery court Geo. W. Tarver was granted an appeal upon filing an appeal bond which was not filed but instead he procured a transcript of a portion of the record, omitting all the evidence on the reference to the Clerk and Master, and has filed this partial transcript, together with a pauper's oath for writ of error, which was without authority of law; and it is insisted that the appeal has not been perfected but has been abandoned’,, and that therefore the writ of error should be dismissed and the decree of the Chancellor affirmed. In other words, after having been granted an appeal upon condition that he execute bond, he is not authorized under the law to procure a transcript of the record and file it for writ of error on a pauper’s oath, and the cases of Anderson v. Anderson, 3 Hig., 430, and Spencer v. Hardin County, 7 Hig., 314 are cited. After an examination of the question we are of the opinion that this contention is not well made. We held in the case of Prinee v. Prince, from Hickman county, in an opinion rendered by Judge DeWitt at the January Session, 1926, 9 Tenn. App. 359, that a male defendant may appeal on the pauper’s oath from a decree of the lower court where he is merely a defendant, and his pleading does not ask for affirmative relief. That case is conclusive of this proposition. See Shannon’s Code, sec. 4928, note 22. The defendant, if the facts warranted it, would have been entitled-to an appeal on the pauper’s oath, but he did not pursue that course and has attempted to bring up the case by writ of error on the pauper’s oath. Of course an *679 appeal is the only inode of review of a divorce decree, but a writ of error will lie from a decree for alimony. See Shannon’s New Code, see.-4890, note 6; Wills v. Wills, 104 Tenn., 882, 58 S. W., 301; Toncray v. Toncray, 123 Tenn., 476, 131 S. W., 977, 34 L. R. A. (N. S.), 1106, Ann. Cas. 1912C, 284. The appellate courts in Tennessee have been granting writs of error in cases where the party prayed and was granted an appeal, but failed to perfect his appeal, ever since the decision in the case of Covington v. Neilson, 6 Yerg., 476. '

The original bill was filed by Mrs. Mabel Timmons Tarver on October 8, 1926, against G-eo. W. Tarver seeking a divorce and alimony on the grounds of abandonment and refusal or neglect to provide for her, and had offered such indignities to her person as to render her condition intolerable and thereby forced her to withdraw, and at the- hearing,' she amended her bill so as to charge cruel and inhuman treatment. The defendant filed a plea setting up the fact that he had previously obtained a judgment granting a divorce in the circuit court and that they were not then married. Thereupon the complainant Mrs. Tarver filed' an amended and supplemental bill, in which she attacked said proceeding in the circuit court wherein a divorce had been granted as fraudulent and void on the ground that she was not a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, and that his alleged grounds for divorce were fraudulent and untrue. She filed copies of his petition, pro confesso and judgment of the circuit court wherein he was granted a divorce, as exhibits to her amended bill. She prayed that the circuit court judgment be declared null and void on the ground of fraud, and asked that the prayer of her original bill be granted.

The defendant Tarver filed another plea to the amended bill in which he insisted, first, that the complainant had a full and adequate remedy at law in the circuit court for the correction of any error claimed in her amended bill, and that there were no equitable grounds upon which to seek the aid of the chancery court in this ease; and second, that the proceeding by amended bill to annuli and avoid a divorce decree in another court of concurrent jurisdiction was a process unknown to the court.

Mrs. Tarver was permitted to amend her amended and supplemental bill so as to deny the charges alleged in the petition for divorce in the circuit court, to the effect that at the time of the marriage she was and still is naturally impotent and incapable of procreation, and that she had been guilty of cruel and inhuman treatment, as false and untrue.

The defendant’s plea was set down for argument, and the court was of the opinion that the plea should be overruled as it was in *680 sufficient in law, and that the defendant be required to answer the amended and supplemental bill.

The defendant Tarver then answered relying upon his plea, and insisting that the complainant was a resident of the State of Florida and a non-resident of the State of Tennessee at the time he filed his original petition in the circuit court and obtained the "judgment for a divorce, that she had abandoned him when he was sick and had gone to the State of Florida. He denied all the grounds for divorce alleged in her original bill as untrue, and insisted that the allegations of his original petition were true, and denied all fraud either in the allegations of his petition or in obtaining the divorce decree in the circuit court. He answered that he had lost all of his property in bank failures and by gambling in futures, and had nothing out of which she could obtain alimony, and generally denied the allegations of the original and amended bills.

The cause was heard by the Chancellor on depositions and oral testimony, and he was of the opinion that the allegations of the original and amended bills were sustained by the proof; that the complainant Mrs. Tarver was not a resident of the State of Florida but was a resident of the State of Tennessee when the original petition was filed in the circuit court, and at the tim,e the judgment for divorce was entered, and that the grounds alleged in that petition for a divorce were untrue and fraudulent. He further held that the charges in the complainant’s original bill as amended were true and granted complainant an absolute divorce on the ground of abandonment, failure and' refusal to provide for her, cruel and inhuman treatment, and that the defendant had offered such indignities to her person as to render her condition intolerable and had thereby forced her to withdraw. He further decreed that the evidence did not sufficiently show what assets or property the defendant Tarver owned, and what salary he obtained, and the cause was referred to the Master to take proof and report the amount of property owned by the defendant and also what salary or income he received.

It appears that several depositions were taken on this order of reference, and while the reference was thus pending, the complainant Mrs. Tarver filed petitions against the defendant Tarver and the Fourth and First National Bank, and the First Industrial Bank of Nashville, alleging that the defendant Tarver had placed funds and made deposits in said banks in fictitious names, and asked that garnishment proceedings be served on each bank requiring it to answer fully about the assets of the defendant Tarver held breach of said banks, and obtained an injunction against paying out the funds.

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Related

Atkinson v. Atkinson
130 S.W.2d 157 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1939)

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Bluebook (online)
10 Tenn. App. 677, 1929 Tenn. App. LEXIS 66, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tarver-v-tarver-tennctapp-1929.