GREEN VS. GREEN (DIVORCE)

Statutes cited

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

By the Court, McNamee, J. On the wife's appeal from a decree granting the husband a divorce for extreme cruelty, the court affirmed. Preliminary allowances (attorney fees and travel/subsistence expenses) under NRS 125.040 require a showing of necessitous circumstances, and it is for the court, not the movant, to determine sufficiency from facts properly presented; the wife's affidavit averring only that she lacked "sufficient" funds stated a mere conclusion of law and was legally insufficient (Carroll v. Carroll, 51 Nev. 62, 268 P. 771 (1928)), so denial of travel allowances was correct and the (erroneous) award of preliminary attorney fees was not prejudicial to her. The findings of extreme cruelty - including the wife's malicious, unfounded letter to the husband's commanding officer accusing him of abandonment, illegitimate children, consorting with prostitutes, and venereal disease, which triggered an investigation and humiliation, damaged his reputation and cost him a responsible position, and impaired his health - were uncontradicted and legally sufficient. The court correctly refused cross-examination on the truth or falsity of the accusations, which were made to wound and harm long after the parties had settled their property and custody matters (Sample v. Sample, 82 Neb. 37, 116 N.W. 953 (1908)). Finally, the court was not bound by the parties' separation agreement as to child support, and no abuse of discretion appeared in the $50-per-child award.

In plain language

The husband was granted a divorce on the ground of extreme cruelty, and the wife appealed on three points. First, before trial the wife had asked the court for preliminary attorney fees plus money to travel from Indiana to Reno for the trial. The trial court gave her attorney fees but denied the travel money. The Nevada Supreme Court agreed with the denial: to get such allowances a wife must show she is genuinely in need, and her affidavit only said she lacked "sufficient" funds - which is a bare conclusion, not the actual facts a court needs to decide the question. (The court noted the fee award she did receive, even if technically improper on such a thin showing, did not harm her.) Second, the wife challenged whether there was enough evidence of extreme cruelty. The trial court had found that she refused to let the husband see or speak to their daughter before he shipped out for foreign military duty, sold his valuable mechanic's tools without permission and refused to say where they went, ignored his letters from Germany asking about the children, and - most significantly - wrote a long letter to his commanding officer falsely accusing him of abandoning his family, fathering illegitimate children, consorting with prostitutes, squandering money, and having a venereal disease. Those accusations triggered an investigation, humiliated him, damaged his reputation, cost him a position of responsibility, and seriously harmed his health. This uncontradicted evidence fully supported a divorce for extreme cruelty. The court also upheld the trial judge's refusal to let the wife's lawyer cross-examine the husband about whether the accusations were true, because the accusations were plainly made to wound and harm him, and were unjustified whether true or false. Third, the wife complained the $50 per month per child support was less than their separation agreement provided. The court held a judge is not bound by a separation agreement about child support, the wife was actually better off financially than the husband, and there was no abuse of discretion. Affirmed.