Archive for the ‘Jurisprudence’ Category

Should a parent’s adultery be per se relevant to child custody?

I’m no social conservative but, contrary to many South Carolina family law attorneys and judges, I believe that a parent’s adultery is almost automatically relevant on the issue of child custody when such adultery demonstrates a spouse’s failure to honor his or her commitment of sexual fidelity to a spouse. South Carolina case law generally [...]

In disputes between biological parents and third-parties, we don’t want decisions to be based on “the best interests of the child”

A review of the excellent news reporting from Allyson Bird at the Charleston Post and Courier, regarding the adoption case involving two year-old, Veronica, her prospective adoptive parents, Matt and Melanie Capobianco, and her Cherokee birth father, Dusten Brown, demonstrates a misunderstanding when a “best interests of the child” standard is applicable.  For custody cases [...]

WTF does the restraint against exposing minor children to “age inappropriate entertainment” actually mean?

I sometimes think there is some hidden law titled, “The South Carolina Family Law Attorney Full Employment Act,” which requires family court judges to issue child-related restraining orders so vague that, in theory, an infinite number of attorneys could spend an infinite amount of time arguing about whether that restraint has been violated.  Such is [...]

2011 provides further evidence of the dearth of published South Carolina family law appellate opinions

Two of my frequent complaints are that South Carolina family law attorneys don’t appeal enough of the decisions they believe are unjust and that the South Carolina appellate courts don’t publish enough of their family court decisions.   As a result of these two factors, the development of family law in South Carolina fails to [...]

Roof demonstrates confused nature of South Carolina’s “substantial change of circumstances” jurisprudence

In South Carolina, child support, child custody and permanent periodic alimony can all be modified upon a showing of “substantial change of circumstances.”  However, there is an exception to this general principle: if the change of circumstances was anticipated at the time of the previous final order, then the change of circumstances is not a [...]

Unpublished opinion (doesn’t) make(s) new law on application of Schedule C guidelines

Floyd v. Morgan, 383 S.C. 469 , 681 S.E.2d 570 (2009) is possibly the worst published family law opinion to come out of the Supreme Court since I started writing this blog in April 2009.  Not only did it unduly heighten the burden to modify child custody agreements–a decision since rectified in Miles v. Miles, [...]

One hundred things I don’t know about South Carolina family law

This blog is inspired by myriad important family law issues that current South Carolina case law and statute don’t adequately answer.  None of these questions is merely academic, as each has come up at least once in my eighteen years of family law practice.  I have firm opinions on the correct answer to some of [...]

The trials of Douglas Alan Barker

Yesterday, eight years, eleven months and eleven days since I began representing my family law colleague Douglas Alan Barker, I closed his file after successfully regaining him sole legal and physical custody of his younger daughter and setting mother’s child support obligation on her income from a high paying job in Nashville.  What a long, [...]