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329 Mass. 643

Nelon v. Nelon

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 6, 1953

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1953-01-06

Relies on Hayden v. Hayden · Gale v. Nickerson

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1953-01-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently December 2002

6 state decisions

20195319601970198019902000decided

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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Lummus, J.

¶1In this case the wife obtained a decree nisi for divorce on March 10,1952. The husband appealed. The wife applied to the Probate Court for an allowance with which to defend against that appeal. On May 26, 1952, the judge ordered the husband to pay into court $500 for the use of the wife. The husband appealed from that order. On request of the husband, the judge found as the material facts that the wife intends to defend against the husband’s appeal in good faith, that to prepare her case will require analysis, condensation and summarizing of the evidence, and that the husband is able to pay and in fairness ought to pay the wife $500 for that purpose.

¶2By G. L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 208, § 38, as it appears in St. 1933, c. 288, the court in a divorce case may “award costs and expenses” to either party “whether or not the marital relation has terminated.” .Such an award may include counsel fees. Hayden v. Hayden, 326 Mass. 587, 594. Sack v. Sack, 328 *644Mass. 600, 605. The principle, stated in Haydenv. Hayden, supra,at page 595, that the power to award costs and expenses ceases when the litigation is terminated, has no application here, for the appeal kept the litigation alive. Gale v. Nickerson, 144 Mass. 415, 416. The amount of the allowance is supported by the findings of the judge.

¶3Decree affirmed.

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