Court Opinion

ID: 9663461
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:39:42.716278+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:50.451177
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in part; concurring in result in part).
ALIMONY
Without conceptually marrying myself to the Marquardt “prima facie” language, and the Lien II holding that “support” is not “support” but is part of a property settlement division, I concur in result with the holding in this opinion on alimony. My dissent in Marquardt is alluded to for my *740specific rationale. Essentially, a woman might well obtain support from one man, but should not obtain support from two in the same equivalent time. One man, one woman, one support. Clearly, this alimony should be terminated and the trial court so held. In Lien II, I did not participate, as I disqualified myself because the two parties were from Western South Dakota, where my judicial district exists, and I knew the parties for many years. I disqualified myself in Lien II, believing that my mind was not in the free and open state, due to some personal knowledge of the factual background, thus precluding totally objective review.
CHILD SUPPORT
In this matter, I concur in result.
Child Support, in this state, has undergone a radical, dramatic philosophical change with the advent of the newly revamped SDCL 25-7-7. For an analysis by this author of the new rigid guidelines and a violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers, see Sharp v. Sharp, 422 N.W.2d 443, 448-49 (S.D.1988) (Henderson, J., dissenting); Bruning v. Jeffries, 422 N.W.2d 579, 582-84 (S.D.1988) (Henderson, J., concurring in result); and Donohue v. Getman, 432 N.W.2d 281, 283 (S.D.1988) (Henderson, J., concurring specially).
Not deigning to change our trial judges into schedule-automatons (read a schedule, plug in some facts, push a button, out comes the answer), but rather choosing to imbue them with judicial discretionary power springing from experience, clothed with constitutional power, and blood cells stimulating the brain, I join in affirming the increase in child support. However, it is upon this basis: His Honor did not abuse his discretionary power. His Honor belongs to the judiciary and has the right to be a full participant in the Doctrine of Separation of Powers. He need not, because the Legislature says so, make decisions affecting the lives of children and mothers and fathers, by the rigidity of mathematical analysis of percentages; nor, need he decide the fate of human beings by a sterile, mathematical extrapolation of tables foisted upon him by a new mood swing in America. Namely, in pursuit of the golden goose of federal funding, our Legislature shattered the constitutional Doctrine of Separation of Powers.* Donohue, at 284-85. Here, the trial court did not err in raising the child support because the children had grown older and their needs had increased. The trial judge recognized that appellee was the Director of Job Service for the State of South Dakota and found that he had a sizeable income (undisputed monthly gross income of $5,029 per month). At $665 per month child support, this constitutes approximately 16% of the net income of the father. He has business interests. Not too many moons ago, this Court held that a decision of the trial court would be reversed if the trial court acted in a manner which amounts to an abuse of discretion defining “ ‘a discretion exercised to an end or purpose not justified by, and clearly against, reason and evidence.’ ” State, Fall River County v. Dryden, 409 N.W.2d 648, 651 (S.D.1987) (citations omitted). This is well-settled law in our state, going back to Herndon v. Herndon, 305 N.W.2d 917 (S.D.1981). I would limit the holding on child support to be that the trial court did not abuse its discretion without alluding to any correct interpretation of SDCL 25-7-7. When discretion is divested from a trial judge, and a schedule of support is substituted therefor by which he must abide, theoretically how can a trial judge abuse his discretion, within a table of support, which has already stripped him of his discretion? Fall River County, 409 N.W.2d at 651. Thinking of an old poem, learned as a struggling student who feasted on the likes of Omar Khayyam, Robert Service, and Edgar Allan Poe, I muse:
Make new law, but keep some old.
Those are silver, these are gold.
*741New made laws, like new wine,
Age will mellow and refine.
Doctrines that have stood the test,
Time, and change, are surely best.
Though memory fade, hair go gray,
Some good law, never knows decay.
Credit to Joseph Parry, author of original poem “New Friends and Old Friends,” lyrics from whence I have borrowed. Or, as J.R.R. Tolkien put it: “The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.” Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, at 182 (2d ed. 1965). Of those principles do I speak, the abuse of discretion test and the Doctrine of Separation of Powers. I would preserve both by keeping discretion with our trial judges, thereby casting jaundiced eye upon establishing child support by and through the rigidity of mathematical analysis. Equity is too springy to employ mathematical extrapolation of tables.
ATTORNEY FEES
I concur fully with the statements contained in the majority opinion.

 Since my minority writings in the above, I take judicial notice (fully appreciating that this Court is not bound thereby) of SDCL 25-7-7 being held unconstitutional by Presiding Judge Gene Paul Kean of the Second Judicial Circuit, Piatt v. Shelton, No. Div. 79-643, Minnehaha County, South Dakota, via Order dated the 28th day of October, 1988.