ANDERSON (AP) A worker shortage may spell big trouble in South Carolina for people who want to resolve problems with their day in court. Court hearings statewide are being delayed because South Carolina can’t hire enough court reporters. Their job ...

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Of 22 judicial seats filled recently in state courts, the vast majority were retained by incumbents, and few races were even close. But it was the election pitting a 16-year seat-holder against a lawmaker’s husband in the lowest-ranking court that ...

Tagged with: family court Gov. Nikki Haley

Buist v. Buist (Lawyers Weekly No. 010-133-14, 8 pp.) (Jean Hoefer Toal, Ch. J.) (Costa Pleicones, J., concurring in the result only) Appealed from Abbeville County Family Court (Billy Tunstall Jr., J.) S.C. S. Ct. Holding: The petitioner-husband objected only ...

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Burgess v. Burgess (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-004-14, 9 pp.) (James E. Lockemy, J.) Appealed from Greenville County Family Court (Robert N. Jenkins Sr., J.) S.C. App. Holding: Even though the husband earned a much as $675,374 a year as a ...

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A CLE program titled “War of the Roses in the Digital Age,” put on last month in Greensboro, included the presentation of a fake Facebook page that surprised attendees with its breadth of information and authentic feel. Family lawyer Ketan Soni had asked an attorney who would be at the seminar for permission to impersonate her virtually, using only information found online. Soni, who practices with Hull & Chandler in Charlotte, said the exercise illustrated how vulnerable clients’ virtual identities are to spouses with bad intentions.

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Simpson v. SimpsonWhen the plaintiff-wife sought to have the defendant-husband held in contempt for failing to comply with the family court’s equitable division order – an order that had been upheld on appeal – the family court did not have the authority to revise the equitable division order.

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South Carolina Department of Social Services v. Nellie M. Although the family court did not consider the father’s conduct prior to his notification of the child’s removal from the mother’s custody, we find it is a relevant consideration.

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For more than 30 years, family courts in South Carolina considered the needs of children caught in the middle of a divorce when awarding college expenses as part of a support order. But in April 2010, the court abruptly reversed itself, giving priority to the rights of parents over the needs of their children, ruling in Webb v. Sowell that parents, divorced or not, had no obligation to pay college expenses and that the courts had no authority to make such an award.

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