Court Opinion

ID: 9605691
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:40:49.081523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:29.765576
License: Public Domain

Bussey, Justice
(concurring and dissenting) :
I am in accord with the result reached in the opinion of Mr. Justice Ness, but not entirely in accord with the opinion. Such seems to imply, if it does not expressly hold, that any time the contempt power of the court is invoked the court must, ex mero mo tu, raise and consider the ability of a defendant to comply with a prior order of the court, and consequently whether or not such should be retroactively modified. Such is, I think, clearly not the law.
The case of Ex Parte Jeter, 193 S. E. 278, 8 S. E. (2d) 490 (1940) is authority for the proposition that in a contempt proceeding a court of equity does have the power to retroactively modify an alimony award, at least to the extent of not punishing a defaulting husband, for contempt, upon a showing by him of an inability to comply. I know of no authority, however, for the proposition that the mere invocation of the contempt power of the court ipso facto raises the ancillary question of modification. To the contrary, in a contempt proceeding the wife makes out a prima facie case of contempt by proving the alimony decree and default in payment thereof and the burden is upon the husband to establish his defense, if any he has. Mixson v. Mix-*106son, 253 S. C. 436, 171 S. E. (2d) 581 (1969). The default of the husband in this case is admitted and he asserted as his only justification or defense for such default alleged misconduct on the part of the wife which he, however, did not even seek to prove, assuming such to be a valid defense. Neither his pleadings nor the record contains any contention on his part of any inability to comply with the order of the court.
In any event the contempt issue was decided adversely to the respondent husband on May 3, 1974, a month prior to the hearing of the divorce action on its merits. Upon the later divorce hearing, without any issue of modification being before the court and without any evidence whatever to support such, the court simply proceeded to retroactively reduce the accrued alimony payments in the precise amount of the costs and attorney’s fees which the wife was entitled to as a result of winning the prior appeal to this Court. The effect of such order by the lower court was to deprive the wife, in substantial part, of the benefit of a judgment in her favor by the Supreme Court of South Carolina. The order also had the effect of improperly modifying, if not vacating, the lower court’s order of May 3, 1974 adjudging the husband in contempt, no such issue being before the lower court at the time. The lower court was patently in error in these particulars.
Lewis, J., concurs.