Thompson v. Thompson

797 S.W.2d 599
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedOctober 1, 1990
StatusPublished
Cited by120 cases

This text of 797 S.W.2d 599 (Thompson v. Thompson) 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
Thompson v. Thompson, 797 S.W.2d 599 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1990).

Opinions

[601]*601OPINION

KOCH, Judge.

This appeal involves the dissolution of a thirty-three year marriage after the wife threatened to shoot her husband with a pistol. The husband sought a divorce in the Chancery Court for Wilson County. The trial court heard the case without a jury and, after the wife voluntarily dismissed her complaint for separate maintenance, granted the husband a divorce on the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment. The wife has appealed, asserting that the husband was not entitled to a divorce because he was an adulterer. She also takes issue with the trial court’s division of the marital estate and with its refusal to make a separate award to defray her legal expenses. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

I.

Leroy Ernest Thompson and Wanda Marie Taylor Thompson were married in Hinton, Oklahoma in May, 1955. They are now both 54 years old and have three grown children. Mr. Thompson was employed by DuPont during most of the marriage. Mrs. Thompson worked during the early part of the marriage but, except for occasional jobs, was a homemaker and mother. The parties moved to Wilson County in 1972 when Mr. Thompson was transferred to the DuPont plant in Old Hickory.

The marriage was punctuated with discord caused by Mrs. Thompson’s religious disapproval of her husband’s drinking and his absences from home while on business. They had arguments that sometimes became violent. Mr. Thompson admitted that he slapped and pushed Mrs. Thompson on several occasions and that he drank excessively prior to 1976. However, he insisted that he had kept his drinking under control for the last twelve years of the marriage except for “a couple of stunts” in 1983 and 1984.

Mr. Thompson had a brief affair in mid-1981. Mrs. Thompson was aware of the indiscretion. In 1983, Mr. Thompson brought up the subject of divorce and suggested that the parties seek marriage counseling. At that time, Mrs. Thompson believed that their marital problems stemmed from Mr. Thompson’s “drinking problem,” his “fidelity,” and the “lack of communication on pertinent relevant subjects.” For his part, Mr. Thompson complained of their “non-open relationship,” Mrs. Thompson’s “jealousy, suspicion, [and] distrust,” and her continuing to make him pay for past mistakes. According to Mr. Thompson, the marriage counseling was not successful because during their remaining time together, Mrs. Thompson would periodically threaten him with divorce and financial ruin.

Mr. Thompson had to take early retirement in December, 1986 because DuPont was eliminating his job in a reorganization. Mr. Thompson went to work as a sales representative with Reemay, Inc., the company that acquired the plant where he had been working. His new job required him to increase his business travel, much to Mrs. Thompson’s dislike.

In late 1987, a childhood friend told Mr. Thompson that another friend, Jane Llewellyn Thomason, was going through a divorce. Mr. Thompson began making long distance telephone calls to Ms. Thomason and, in early 1988, began to visit her in Oklahoma when he was travelling on business.

Mrs. Thompson became very suspicious because Mr. Thompson was “gone somewhere every night of the week” and because he was “preoccupied completely and totally absorbed with his appearance and with himself.” While she did not know whether Mr. Thompson was seeing another woman, Mrs. Thompson “felt ... that’s where we were headed, and I [did not] want to go through that all over again.”

Mrs. Thompson believed that “if I wanted a marriage I had to get his attention, I had to let him know that this was not going to be this way, that ... he was going to at least give me the dignity of talking to me about it, and he was going to tell me what it was that was a problem.” She told Mr. Thompson that she was very unhappy, but [602]*602Mr. Thompson would not discuss the matter with her.

Mr. Thompson arrived home late on March 31, 1988. Mrs. Thompson met him at the door demanding to know where he had been. When Mr. Thompson made light of the question, Mrs. Thompson ordered him to sit at the counter in the kitchen. Then she produced a loaded .357 magnum pistol and, pointing the pistol at him, began to scream, swear, and demand to know what woman he had been running around with.

Mrs. Thompson held Mr. Thompson at gunpoint for over two hours. At one point, Mr. Thompson told Mrs. Thompson that he needed to use the bathroom. Mrs. Thompson cocked the trigger and said, “[Y]ou bastard ... if you so much as move ... I’m going to shoot you right in the middle of your guts and I’m going to watch blood run down your leg, onto the floor and form a puddle, and watch you lay [sic] there and die in it.” Mr. Thompson finally talked Mrs. Thompson into laying down the pistol. Later that night, he unloaded and hid it along with the other shells in the house.

Mr. Thompson and Mrs. Thompson began to talk about getting a divorce after the incident with the pistol. After he decided that he wished a divorce, Mr. Thompson asked his daughter and her husband to be present when he informed Mrs. Thompson of his decision. On May 1,1988, after Mrs. Thompson returned from church, Mr. Thompson told her that he wanted a divorce. Mrs. Thompson became angry because her daughter and son-in-law were present and, starting toward the bedroom where the pistol had been kept, stated, “I want him out of my house, I’m going to get my gun.” Mr. Thompson left the house and never returned while Mrs. Thompson was present. Mr. Thompson filed his divorce complaint on May 6, 1988. Mrs. Thompson filed a separate complaint five days later.

Mr. Thompson began seeing Ms. Thoma-son much more regularly, and they became romantically involved. Even though he was not divorced, Mr. Thompson married Ms. Thomason in a civil ceremony in Carson City, Nevada on August 1, 1988. They then began living together as husband and wife in an apartment in Nashville. The marriage was later annulled on December 20, 1988 by the district court in Carson City.

Mrs. Thompson became upset and embarrassed when she learned of Mr. Thompson’s marriage. She and her sister began to spy on the couple. After obtaining copies of the marriage papers, she obtained a criminal warrant in the Davidson County General Session court charging Mr. Thompson with bigamous cohabitation. She also retained a new lawyer and, in December, 1988, filed an answer to Mr. Thompson’s divorce petition. She also filed an amended complaint seeking only separate maintenance instead of an absolute divorce.

The trial court heard the case on January 19, 1989. During her cross-examination of Mr. Thompson, Mrs. Thompson’s lawyer announced that her client “would like to non-suit her action” because she did not want a divorce for cruel and inhuman treatment. The trial court was rather surprised at this request but stated, “I don’t know of anything I can do about that ... so I’ll have to sustain the motion for non-suit.” Shortly thereafter, the court noted that “[t]his case has taken a very strange turn of events this morning. As the case now stands, Mrs. Thompson is not from an affirmative standpoint, seeking any relief. She’s simply asking that Mr. Thompson’s divorce action be dismissed.”

Later, the trial court noted in its memorandum opinion that:

The Court frankly is apprehensive of the fact that Mrs.

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Bluebook (online)
797 S.W.2d 599, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thompson-v-thompson-tennctapp-1990.