In what circumstances will a judge in chambers make a decision on a separate maintenance request rather than a divorce?

The authorities appellants cite do not compel a different outcome. McVey v. McVey (1955) 132 Cal.App.2d 120 was a divorce case in which the wife had asked for

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separate maintenance instead of divorce. Before the trial started, the judge stated that he did not approve of separate maintenance. At the conclusion of the wife's case-in-chief, the judge in chambers pressured her to agree to divorce instead of separate maintenance, stating that he might award her no alimony and less than 50 percent of community property if she did not change her request for relief. (Id. at pp. 122-123.) The reviewing court had no trouble concluding that the wife had not received a fair trial. In Rosenfield v. Vosper (1941) 45 Cal.App.2d 365, a suit for unpaid legal fees, the judge decided before the plaintiff had finished testifying what the damages should be. (Id. at pp. 371-372.) In this case, by contrast, all of the evidence had been submitted to the court, and the only opinion it expressed dealt with the parties' credibility, not with any individual cause of action.