Langrall v. Langrall

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. By a decree of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City, dated April 12, 1921, the appellant and appellee were divorced a vinculo matrimonii. This appeal is from an order passed June 19, 1923, reducing the amount of the alimony for which the decree of divorce provided. Before the conclusion of the appellant's suit for the divorce an agreement was signed by the parties to the effect that in the event of the passage of a decree dissolving the marriage, there should be a provision for alimony “at the rate of thirty dollars per week to cease upon the remarriage or death” of the appellant, “the court ³⁴² retaining jurisdiction to alter the amount of alimony in accordance with the circumstances of the parties.” The agreement. provided that it was not to be effective unless approved by the court in which the suit was pending.

In conformity with the agreement an award of permanent alimony at the rate of thirty dollars per week was made by the decree granting the'divorce, the payments to cease upon the. remarriage or death of the appellant, and the court retained jurisdiction to change, “in accordance with the circumstances of the parties,” the amount of the alimony payments which were decreed. No children were born of the marriage. The petition of the appellee, in June, 1923, for a reduction of the alimony, alleged that when the decree was passed he was drawing the sum of seventy dollars per week as a member of the firm of Langrall Brothers, but that his drawing account was subsequently fixed at the sum of sixty dollars per week, and it was about to be again reduced to forty-five dollars, per week, and that he had remarried and was unable to comply with the decree because of his diminished earnings. It was further stated in the petition that the firm of which the appellee is a member had been operating at a loss for .a period of three years, that the appellee had been obliged to hypothecate his life insurance to pay his debts, and that he had no property or assets of any kind other than his interest in the firm of Langrall Brothers.

Beference was made in the petition to the fact that the appellee had become in arrears for some weeks in his alimony payments, and had been ordered to appear in court to answer a charge of contempt for failure to comply with the terms of the decree, and the request was made that a modification of the decree be considered at the time appointed for a hearing in the contempt proceeding. In her answer to the appellee’s petition, the appellant denied his allegations as to the state of his finances, and averred that he is the senior member of a firm, consisting of himself and two brothers, which conducts a large and successful canning business under the name of the Baltimore Canning Company, .and that the net worth of the business had largely increased during the past five years and was then approxi ³⁴³ matcly one hundred thousand dollars. The answer stated that, the remarriage of the appellee was with the co-respondent in the suit in which the appellant obtained her divorce; that the appellant’s condition is such that she is unable to engage in any gainful occupation; that she cannot live in keeping with the means and station in life of her former husband on less than the amount of alimony previously allowed, and that she is entitled to have' the original award continued. According to the appellee’s testimony at the hearing on his petition, he is the owner of .a half interest in two packing house in Baltimore.

When the divorce w'as decreed, in 1921, he. had a drawing account of sixty dollars per week, and he was still receiving that amount weekly from the firm when he testified in support of his application to have the decree modified. In addition, he had for several year's derived from the business various sums aggregating more than three thous- and dollars annually, which he described as loans. Those withdrawals tvere chargeable against his share of the pro-fits. During the first four months of 1923 his receipts from the firm beyond his salary of sixty dollars per week amounted to more than seven hundred dollars.

It was testified that the appellee’s father bad loaned the firm about fifty thousand dollars during the period of its existence. No payment of principal or interest on this debt bad been made or demanded. Apparently it was not included in the firm’s financial statements. The income' tax reports of the appellee for the years 1920, 1921 and 1922 were produced.

They show net losses of $1,778.65, $1,984.47 and $2,679.29 for those years. It was during the period when such losses, were being reported that lie agreed upon the alimony payments which the decree required. The testimony refers to a financial statement issued by the firm in June, 1922, showing its not worth lo he $84,954.23, and to an accompanying letter indicating that the firm’s business was profitable, and stating that its sales probably would be more than double the amount of those for 1921, in which year, it was said, the sales were not of the usual volume because of a depression in the canning industry ³⁴⁴ at that time. The hook value of the business, as testified by the appellee and one of his partners, was much less than the appraisement on which their financial statement was based, the former valuation being about eleven thousand dollars on January 1st, 19'23.

It appears from the evidence that the business which produced