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194 Ga. 332

21 S.E.2d 229

Williams v. Williams

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided June 18, 1942

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1942-06-18

Relies on Stallings v. Stallings · Jennison v. Jennison · Bishop v. Bishop

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1942-06-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently April 2017

11 state decisions

6019421950196019701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Duckworth, Justice.

¶1 1. Where a wife’s petition for permanent and temporary alimony under the Code, § 30-213, is dismissed for want of prosecution, a previous award of temporary alimony to the wife, based upon such petition, terminates with such dismissal. Bishop v. Bishop, 124 Ga. 293 (52 S. E. 743); Stallings v. Stallings, 127 Ga. 464 (56 S. E. 469, 9 L. R. A. (N. S.) 593); Higgs v. Higgs, 144 Ga. 20 (85 S. E. 1041); Mason v. Mason, 151 Ga. 468 (107 S. E. 331); B risendine v. Brisendine, 152 Ga. 745 (2) (111 S. E. 22); Fauver v. Hemperly, 178 Ga. 424 (2) (173 S. E. 82).

¶2 2. Where such an action has been dismissed for want of prosecution, and has not been reinstated, the case is entirely out of court, and no further relief can be granted thereon. A petition “supplementary” to and expressly made a part of the first petition will not authorize a grant of permanent alimony or additional temporary alimony to the wife.

¶3 3. The dismissal of the suit for alimony does not terminate the right of the wife to enforce the installments of temporary alimony which became due before such dismissal. Fauver v. Hemperly, supra, and cit.

¶4 4. Subsequent voluntary cohabitation will render void a judgment for temporary alimony. Weeks v. Weeks, 160 Ga. 369 (127 S. E. 772); Mosely v. Mosely, 181 Ga. 543 (182 S. E. 849); Thomas v. Smith, 185 Ga. 243 (3) (194 S. E. 502).

¶5 5. An order granting temporary alimony is always in the breast of the *333 court, and the court is authorized at any time, in the exercise of a sound discretion, to revise or revoke such an order. Code, § 30-204; Jennison v. Jennison, 136 Ga. 202 (71 S. E. 244, Ann. Cas. 1912C, 441); Hemphill v. Hemphill, 172 Ga. 387 (157 S. E. 637). The judge being authorized to find from the evidence in the instant case that the parties resumed cohabitation within a week after the temporary alimony had been awarded, it was not error to declare such order null and void.

No. 14159. June 18, 1942. Rehearing denied July 16, 1942.

¶6 Judgment affirmed.

All the Justices concur. *334 John J. McCreary, for plaintiff. Edward F. Taylor, for defendant.
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