Rauch v. Rauch
Rauch v. Rauch
Opinion of the Court
In this proceeding,the husband sued. the wife for divorce upon the ground of cruel treatment, alleged to have consisted of a series of studied vexations, deliberate insults, and provocations in the form of opprobrious epithets and false accusations against himself and members of his family, applied so constantly and so nearly continuously throughout the brief three-year span of their married life, as to make their continuing longer as husband and wife insupportable.
The wife denied the allegations and countered with a cross-action, charging that plaintiff had so constantly abused her sexually as to completely undermine her normal good health, had then refused to provide for necessary means and medical treatment to restore her, and with the intent to bu-miliate and distress her, as well as to further destroy her health, had filed-this suit against her, setting forth therein false and malicious accusations, calculated to shame and humiliate her; that such conduct and acts upon his part amounted to such cruel and unusual treatment as entitled her to a divorce, for which she prayed. It is not deemed essential that further details of pleadings so mutually accusatory be here recorded.
The defendant further averred that during their married life community property had come into existence, all of which was in *335 plaintiff’s possession, and slie asked for an accounting and division of it between them, for alimony pending the suit, and for $500 attorney’s fees. By way of supplemental answer, in reply to plaintiff’s amended petition, she alleged that plaintiff had condoned all acts and wrongs set up by him, and that up to the 15th day of September, 1919, had lived with her in all respects of wedlock, filing his suit for divorce on the next day. These supplemental matters were denied by the plaintiff in an answering petition, in which he also pleaded that anything he had done even looking toward forgiveness or con-donation had been done upon promises of the defendant to treat him as a wife should her husband, all of which she had not only failed to keep, but that on September 15, 1919, on the Market Square in Houston, she had again called him all sorts of vile and ugly names, at the same time threatening to get a pistol and kill him.
The trial before the court without a jury resulted in a judgment granting plaintiff a divorce, refusing defendant’s cross-claim for a divorce, as well as her application for attorney’s fees, but awarding her, along with a few other small items of like character, a recovery of $330 for one-half the value of what the court found to be community property between them; $300 of this was for one-half of 10 salary checks, for $60 each, earned and deposited in bank by plaintiff during the marriage relation, and $14 of it represented one-half the interest earned dim-ing that time on a separately owned note of his for $350.
Both parties complain upon appeal; the defendant, as appellant, of each feature of the judgment, and the plaintiff, through cross-assignments, of that part decreeing the defendant the one-half of the salary and interest items just referred to, as out of community property. We are unable to hold there was reversible error affecting' either party, and order an affirmance.
Moreover, appellant made no attempt to prove that appellee did or said anything tending toward a remission of the particular reiteration of prior offenses in that reg'ard; he charged and pointedly swore she visited on him in Houston on September 15, 1919; she simply denied that any such occurrence took place. If it did, as the trial court was not without authority to find, the further conclusion that it was never condoned might have been, and probably was, drawn as resting upon uncontradicted testimony.
The appellant contends that there was throughout the period of their married life such a commingling of these admittedly separate funds of her husband with those of the community as to destroy their identity as such, and convert them into common property, citing in support of the claim article 4623 of our Revised Statutes, Speer on Marital *336 Rights, §§ 307-310, 336, 372, 516, Edelstein v. Brown, 95 S. W. 1126, Robb v. Robb, 41 S. W. 92, and, Moor v. Moor, 24 Tex. Civ. App. 150, 57 S. W. 992.
The course of business shown, however, was that appellee would borrow from his separate accounts thus in bank for community needs and afterwards replace the money out of community funds. The evidence, we think, was sufficient to account on this basis for the handling' of all money and property involved, except those specific items found by the trial court to constitute common property. Such method and process would not, in our opinion, have the legal effect of changing the character of the funds in bank, but they would still remain the separate property of the husband. Rose v. Houston, 11 Tex. 324, 62 Am. Dec. 478; Chapman v. Allen, 15 Tex. 278; Montgomery v. Brown, 1 White & W. Civ. Cas. Ct. App. § 1303; Schuster v. Bauman Jewelry Co., 79 Tex. 179, 15 S. W. 259, 23 Am. St. Rep. 327; Schmidt v. Huppmann, 73 Tex. 112, 11 S. W. 175; Aultman Miller & Co. v. George, 12 Tex. Civ. App., 457, 34 S. W. 652; Cabell v. Menczer (Tex.) 35 S. W. 206; Kingman-Texas Imp. Co. v. Herring National Bank, 153 S. W. 398; Speer on Married Women, §§ 223 and 231; Schneider & Co. v. Fowler, 1 White & W. Civ. Cas. Ct. App. § 856.
As to the salary and interest items to which the cross-assignments' relate, we think the evidence sufficiently shows these to have been when banked, and to have remained, community gains, and not replacements of moneys borrowed from the separate estate of the husband.
From these conclusions, it follows that all assignments of both parties should be overruled, and the Judgment affirmed; that order has been ordered. ,
Affirmed.
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