CAYE VS. CAYE (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

On the appellant wife's motion for allowances on appeal ($500 attorney fee, $10 undertaking, $201.60 transcript, $54.90 record) from a decree granting the respondent husband a divorce on three years' separation as against her defense and cross-complaint for separate maintenance. The court, per curiam, denied every item already secured or filed, reaffirming that allowances operate prospectively only (Cunningham v. Cunningham, 60 Nev. 191, 200; Afriat v. Afriat, 61 Nev. 321, 328). On good faith, the court quoted the trial judge's remarks - that the husband's conduct had been 'reprehensible' and that had the wife sought a divorce he would have granted it 'on nearly any grounds' - and noted her contention that the period of separation was caused solely by the husband's service in the armed forces, a circumstance she argued was outside the contemplation of the three-year-separation statute; on that record the court could not say the appeal was not taken in good faith. Considering the parties' respective financial conditions (her aggregate income over $400 per month including $60 weekly alimony; his $298.75 per month), it ordered a $150 attorney fee, granted the motion pro tanto, held the appeal in abeyance pending payment unless the wife elected to proceed, declined to release $690 under attachment in a separate action for want of properly invoked jurisdiction, and left the $60 weekly alimony undisturbed.

In plain language

A trial court granted a husband a divorce for three years' separation, rejecting his wife's request for separate maintenance, after remarking from the bench that the husband's conduct toward his wife had been 'reprehensible' and that a separate-maintenance decree 'never settles anything.' The wife, who lived in New York, appealed and asked the Nevada Supreme Court to make the husband pay a $500 attorney fee plus the costs of her bond, transcript, and record on appeal. The supreme court refused any allowance for the bond, transcript, and record, because she had already obtained and filed them - allowances can only cover future expenses, not ones already incurred. It rejected the husband's argument that the appeal was taken merely in spite: the trial judge's own remarks about the husband's conduct, and the wife's contention that the separation was caused solely by his military service and so should not count under the three-year separation statute, showed the appeal was in good faith. Weighing her income (roughly $400 per month counting $60 weekly alimony plus her $40 weekly earnings) against his (about $298.75 per month), the court ordered the husband to pay a reduced $150 attorney fee and held the appeal in abeyance until he paid it. It declined to touch $690 of the husband's funds that the wife had attached in a separate lawsuit.