[Download] "Woehler v. Woehler" by Supreme Court of Montana # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Woehler v. Woehler
- Author : Supreme Court of Montana
- Release Date : January 09, 1938
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 56 KB
Description
Contempt ? Husband and Wife ? Separate Maintenance ? Alimony ? District Court Empowered to Modify Decree as to Past Due and Future Installments Payable ? Inability of Husband to Make Payments ? Evidence ? Discretion of Trial Court Held not Abused in Failing to Find Accused Guilty of Contempt. Husband and Wife ? Alimony ? Court may Modify Decree Relative to Future as Well as to Past Due Installments. 1. The general rule that the power to modify decrees allowing alimony extends only to future installments and not to such as have already accrued, on the ground that such allowance constitutes a vested right which the court has no authority to alter or change, does not apply where the statute provides otherwise, as does section 5769, Revised Codes, in this state. Same ? Separate Maintenance Action ? Modification of Decree ? Statute Held to Authorize Court to Modify Decree in Above Particular. 2. Section 5769, supra, declaring that the final judgment in a separate maintenance action may by its orders be enforced by the district court as it may in its discretion, from time to time deem necessary, held broad enough to include within its terms not only future but also past due installments of alimony. Same ? Contempt ? Inability of Husband to Pay Alimony ? Evidence ? Trial Court Held not to have Abused Discretion in Reducing Amount Payable. 3. Where the evidence in a contempt proceeding based upon a failure of the husband to pay alimony awarded the wife in a separate maintenance decree, heard with a petition of the husband to modify such award, filed before hearing of the contempt charge, was in sharp conflict on the matter of the ability of the latter to obey the courts order, but there was substantial evidence supporting the finding that the contemnor was then and had been for some time past financially unable to meet the installments fixed by the original decree, the supreme court on appeal may not say that the court abused its discretion in reducing the monthly award from $150 to $50, nor erred in failing to find him guilty of contempt.