GREINSTEIN VS. GREINSTEIN (DIVORCE PROPERTY & ALIMONY)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

Appeal on the judgment roll alone (a tendered bill of exceptions was disallowed as untimely, 3 Rev. Laws p. 3342) from portions of a divorce judgment for the plaintiff wife. A jury found extreme cruelty; the court adopted the verdict, found no community estate but $5,000 to $6,000 in the husband's separate property plus a going business of fluctuating value, found the wife without sufficient means and physically unable to support herself, and awarded $65 monthly permanent alimony, $500 in staged cash payments ($250 forthwith, $250 within six months), and a life estate (terminable on remarriage) in the Winnemucca home (lot 4, block 2, Haviland and Hoskins addition, valued about $2,000, furniture about $100) with reversion to the husband, secured by an escrow deed vesting the entire fee in the wife on default of the deferred $250. The husband appealed only from the conveyance provisions, asserting want of jurisdiction to divest a husband of title to his separate property. Held: on the authority of section 27 (Rev. Laws 5843) as construed in Lake v. Bender, 18 Nev. 361, and Powell v. Campbell, 20 Nev. 232, the court did not exceed its jurisdiction, power, or authority; on judgment-roll review only face-of-the-roll errors are cognizable (3 Rev. Laws p. 3344; Miller v. Walser, 42 Nev. 497), and absent the evidence the justness and equity of the award cannot be examined. Affirmed.

In plain language

A wife sued for divorce for extreme cruelty, and a jury found in her favor. There was no community property, but the husband owned separate property worth $5,000 to $6,000, including the Winnemucca home (worth about $2,000) where the couple lived. Finding the wife unable to support herself and the husband able to pay, the court awarded her $65 a month in permanent alimony, $250 in cash plus another $250 within six months, and the use of the home and furniture for life or until remarriage - and ordered the husband to convey a life estate in the home to her, with an escrow deed passing the full title to her if the second $250 went unpaid. The husband appealed only from the part of the judgment ordering him to convey his separate property, arguing the court had no power to take title to a husband's separate property and give it to the wife. The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed. Under the divorce statute as long construed in Lake v. Bender and Powell v. Campbell, the district court did not exceed its jurisdiction or authority in making the orders. And because the husband appealed on the judgment roll alone, without a bill of exceptions bringing up the evidence, the supreme court could not review whether the award was just and equitable - only errors appearing on the face of the roll, and there were none.