SNYDER VS. SNYDER (DIVORCE)

Key holdings

Practitioner summary

The case reached the court on appeal from the judgment and from the order denying a new trial in a divorce granted to the husband on the ground of the wife's incurable impotency. The court declined to review the assignment that the trial court erred in sustaining demurrers to the wife's separate defenses (including res judicata based on two prior California judgments), holding that a new trial is by statute a reexamination of an issue of fact (sec. 8875 N. C. L.), and that errors in rulings upon demurrers to pleadings cannot be reviewed on a motion for a new trial (Hayne, New Trial and Appeal, rev. ed., vol. 1, sec. 7). Because the wife did not amend after the demurrers were sustained and the case was tried on the issues joined, reversal with directions to overrule the demurrer would create different issues of fact or determine the case on issues of law, not reexamine the facts tried. The same principle barred review of the refusal to admit exemplified copies of the California pleadings, findings, and judgments. On the remaining question - sufficiency of the evidence - the court noted that counsel expressly declined to examine or comment on the evidence, leaving the court to review only whether there was any evidence of a substantial character to support the trial court's findings; finding such evidence, it affirmed the order denying a new trial.

In plain language

A husband sued his wife for divorce claiming she was, and would remain, incurably impotent. The wife raised several defenses: that he had forgiven the condition by continuing to live with her, that he had waited too long (laches), that he himself had deserted her (recrimination), and that two earlier California judgments had already denied him a divorce and so the issue was settled (res judicata). The trial court dismissed all her defenses, then, after a trial, granted the husband a divorce but ordered him to pay her $75 a month for life or until she remarried. Years later her motion for a new trial was denied, and she appealed the judgment and that denial. The Nevada Supreme Court declined to review whether the trial court was right to throw out her defenses. It explained that a motion for a new trial is a re-examination of issues of fact, and that errors in rulings on demurrers (which are legal rulings on the pleadings) cannot be reviewed through a new-trial motion. Reversing to reinstate her defenses would create new issues rather than re-examine facts already tried. The same reasoning barred review of the court's refusal to admit copies of the California case records. That left only whether the evidence supported the trial court's findings. The wife's lawyers deliberately chose not to analyze or argue the evidence, so the court reviewed only whether there was any substantial evidence to support the findings. Finding such evidence after a careful reading of the record, the court affirmed the denial of a new trial.