To prevent spouses from making up grounds for a divorce that they are not entitled to, South Carolina requires “corroboration” of divorce grounds to prevent “collusive” divorce requests. However, one shouldn’t assume that an independent witness or documentary evidence is necessary to corroborate a fault divorce. Often an admission against interest will be sufficient to [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Divorce’
Piling on
Did an uncontested fault divorce yesterday in which the pro se defendant failed to appear. To prove the defendant’s habitual intoxication required testimony and evidence of his extremely heavy drinking. The result was a brief, incomplete, biography of a life devolved into a tragic waste. Not quite as depressing to hear as to live through, [...]
The “best” age(s) for South Carolina husbands to commit adultery
One of the many oddities of South Carolina family law is that a husband is typically best off committing adultery when he and his wife are either very young or very old. It’s the middle-aged dudes who suffer the most financially from their philandering. When a couple is young, especially if there are no children, [...]
Should separation be required for a separate maintenance action?
In April 2011, the South Carolina Supreme Court heard oral argument in the case of Eileen Frances Theresa Busto Theisen v. Clifford Richard Theisen. According to the Supreme Court’s roster of cases, the issue in this appeal is “whether physical separation is a pre-requisite for a party to receive separate maintenance and support.” Since Supreme [...]
So that’s why (s)he left
Continuing today’s theme of gifts from benevolent domestic litigation deities is the issue of overly vitriolic affidavits for temporary hearings in marital dissolution cases. When beginning representation in a marital dissolution case the spouse who moved out is often at a disadvantage unless he or she can provide a good explanation for why he or [...]
Dan Savage on the virtues of infidelity
An interesting piece in tomorrow’s New York Times Sunday Magazine, Married, with Infidelities, highlights my favorite relationship advice columnist, Dan Savage, and his views on marriage and monogamy. In his relationship column, Savage Love, Dan observes many of the same problems with contemporary marriage that I see in my divorce practice: the tensions and conflicts [...]
Didn’t she read the owner’s manual?
Went to another temporary hearing yesterday to “learn” from reading the opposing party-wife’s affidavit that my husband-client likes to “drink beer” and “visit adult websites.” Well duh. Aren’t women reading the owner’s manual before purchasing husbands? I’m pretty sure it notes that husbands like to drink beer and visit adult websites. Admittedly when a husband [...]
We appear to have an answer on what constitutes a narcotic
A few months ago I blogged about the common misconception that South Carolina has a ground for divorce for drug abuse when it really has a ground for divorce for habitual intoxication that can include narcotic intoxication. That blog noted that the statutory definitions of narcotic differed from the medical definitions (with medicine increasing eschewing [...]