Diedrichs v. Diedrichs
Diedrichs v. Diedrichs
Opinion of the Court
On April 20, 1900, Laura Diedrichs, defendant in error, filed.her petition in the office of the clerk of the district court for Lincoln county, praying for a divorce from her husband, William Diedrichs, upon the ground of cruelty. No specific acts of cruelty are set out in the petition of a date later than December, 1899. It is first insisted by the plaintiff in error that the petition shows upon its face that the acts of cruelty were condoned, and a demurrer was interposed to the petition upon these grounds, which was overruled by the court. In his argument, the plaintiff in error assumes that Mrs. Diedrichs lived with her husband up to the date of the filing of her petition. This does not appear upon the face of the petition, and if it did we are not prepared to hold that condonation should be so conclusively presumed therefrom as to require the court to sustain a demurrer to the petition upon that ground. Under some circumstances the continued cohabitation of the wife with her husband after cruelty practiced upon her wall work a condonation, but this is not always the case.
We think there was no error in overruling the demurrer, and trying as an issue of fact the question of condonation. December 17, 1900, Mrs. Diedrichs filed a supplemental petition, setting up further acts of cruelty, which she alleged had occurred subsequent to the filing of her original petition; and afterward, and on February 2, 1901, the defendant filed an answer to the original petition, and a motion to strike from the files the supplemental petition, for the reason that the same was filed without notice being-served upon the defendant or his attorney, and without an order of court having been first obtained therefor. This motion came on to be heard on April 17, 1901, apparently without any evidence to support it in the way of affidavits or otherwise, and was resisted by the plaintiff, who filed the affidavit of'J. S. Hoagland, her attorney, to the effect that he had delivered a copy of the supplemental petition to W. T. Wilcox, one of the attorneys for the der fendant, on December 17, 1900, the date of filing the same. The court sustained the motion and struck the supplemental petition, but thereafter, and on motion of the plain
The object of requiring notice -undoubtedly is to allow the party against whom the pleading is filed to examine the same and be advised of its contents, and to object thereto if so advised. All this was accomplished by serving the attorney for the defendant with a copy of the supplemental petition filed in the case. On the record, as we find it, we think the court was in error in striking the supplemental petition from the file; and if this be true, the order allowing it to be refiled was error without prejudice, and the defendant can not complain of the action of the court in that respect.
It appears from the bill of exceptions that shortly after filing her petition Mrs. Diedrichs left the state of Nebraska and went to the home of her parents, in Ohio, Avhere she was delivered of a child. It is claimed that her visit to Ohio was for the purpose of being Avith her mother during the period of her confinement. Shortly after the birth of her child her husband appeared, and, as is claimed, took forcible possession of another child, about two years old and endeavored to escape with him from the state. Such legal proceedings were had as caused the arrest of defendant in the state of Ohio, and his confinement in the jail of the county. It was apparently during his confinement in the jail that notice Avas served upon his attorneys in North Platte of the taking of depositions in the case in support of Mrs. Diedrichs’s petition. This notice was sent by his attorney to Diedrichs in Ohio, but was never delivered to or received by him. In consequence of his failure to receive notice of the time and place of the taking of the depositions, he was unrepresented, and the Aptnesses were not cross-examined. A motion to strike these depositions from the file was made upon that ground, and
On December 11, 1901, the defendant filed an application for a continuance of the case on account of the absence of witnesses, which motion was overruled for the reason “that the same shows want of diligence on the part of the defendant in preparation for trial.” It will be noticed that the petition was filed in April, 1900, and the motion for a continuance in December, 1901, some twenty months after the commencement of the action. No diligence whatever is shown by the defendant in attempting to secure the attendance of the absent witnesses, and, further than that, as to all but one of these witnesses no specific act or facts to which they would testify is contained in the affidavit, nor i» it alleged that there Avere not other available witnesses who would testify to the same matter. There was no error in overruling this motion.
We recommend the affirmance of the decree of the district court.
By the Court: For the reasons stated in the foregoing opinion, the decree of the district court is
Affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.