Loveren

This is an appeal from an order made by the court below during the pendency of an action for divorce, requiring the defendant to “pay the plaintiff the sum of seven hundred and ninety-nine dollars and sixty-eight cents for the purpose of defraying the costs and expenses of this action incurred by her up to this date.”

The only question to be determined here involves the power of the court to make such order.

The power of the court to grant alimony pendente lite in an action for divorce is derived solely from that part of section 137, Civil Code, which reads as follows:

The plain object of this statute was to empower the court, during the pendency of an action for divorce, upon a proper showing made by the wife for that purpose, to compel the husband to provide her with the means necessary to enable her to prosecute or defend the action.

If the expenses of the action have been incurred or paid by her with means derived from her separate estate or upon her credit, then there can be no necessity for an allowance by the court to enable her to do that which she has already done, and without such necessity the court has no authority under the statute to make such an order. And no…