Newlands v. Superior Court

HENSHAW, J.

This is an original petition for mandate to compel the superior court of Los Angeles County and the Honorable Charles Monroe, judge thereof, to grant the petitioner alimony

pendente lite,

attorneys’ fees and costs, grow

[742]

ing out of the matter of her proposed appeal from the judgment and deoree of divorce awarded against her.

By his answer respondent shows that petitioner, Viola New-lands, brought her action against her husband, Joseph R. Newlands, on the twenty-fourth day of August, 1914. She charged that the defendant abandoned her in the city of New Orleans on the third day of April, 1911, and ever since has without cause failed to provide for her. . She also charged him with the infliction of extreme cruelty upon her. The defendant answered and likewise filed a cross-complaint, in which he sought a divorce from plaintiff upon the twofold grounds of her desertion and her cruelty. Pending the trial of this action plaintiff, under order not made by respondent, was in receipt of alimony

pendente lite.

The trial had before respondent resulted in his finding, upon ample legal evidence, that defendant had not deserted plaintiff and had not treated her with cruelty, had not applied to her violent and offensive names, and had never struck or beaten her; that defendant was not, as charged, at the time he contracted marriage .afflicted with a loathsome venereal disease; that plaintiff upon the trial introduced evidence to show that she was and had been suffering from a venereal disease called gonorrhea, but neither this nor any other disease had been communicated to plaintiff by defendant; that during their married life together defendant provided for plaintiff according to his circumstances; that they were married in the city of New Orleans in 1909 and came to California in 1910; that on the third day of April, 1911, plaintiff, against the protest of her husband, insisted upon returning to New Orleans, and did return, deserting and abandoning her husband and her child about one year of age; that defendant protested against this desertion and abandonment of himself and their child, and that plaintiff with profanity declared her intention of returning to New Orleans, and demanded money of defendant to enable her to do so, threatening to commit suicide and to kill herself and child if the money was not forthcoming. Defendant’s pleadings were unavailing, and on April 3, 1911, plaintiff took the train and went to New Orleans, where she remained until about the 4th of August, 1914. During the first year of her absence plaintiff wrote several letters to her husband asking him to send her money to enable her to return. The court found that defendant did not send her money