The typical response of an unhappy litigant to an unfavorable guardian ad litem report is to accuse the guardian of bias. While in rare instances the guardian is actually biased, more often the report is fairly accurate (reports, being the product of human beings, are rarely perfectly accurate) and the litigant is simply unhappy with […]
Archive for April, 2018
Supreme Court clarifies standard of review on family court appeals (and the Stoney appeal may never end)
On April 18, 2018, almost four months after the South Carolina Supreme Court remanded the appeal of Stoney v. Stoney back to the Court of Appeals to apply the correct standard of review, the Supreme Court issued a revised opinion clarifying that standard of review. The revised opinion keeps in place the prior holding that […]
Attorney-client privilege’s crime-fraud exception in family court
The recent FBI search of the records of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s attorney, has raised issues of attorney-client privilege and the crime-fraud exception to that privilege. Attorney-client privilege is the client’s right (and the attorney’s obligation) to shield a client’s disclosures to the attorney and that attorney’s advice to the client from exposure to others […]
Supreme Court issues slightly modified opinion in Ex-Parte: Carter
On April 11, 2018 the Supreme Court issued a slightly modified opinion of its March 21, 2018 decision in Ex-Parte: Carter. It appears to have made three minor changes that do not affect the general ruling. First, it adds a footnote indicating that “the Carters were sent an email in the morning of December 15, […]