Court Opinion

ID: 9736842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:08:14.159236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:54.989410
License: Public Domain

MORGAN, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in all respects except with regard to the notice of review issue on the “returned” June support check. I would affirm the trial court on that issue also.
The statutes, SDCL 25-7-7.3 and SDCL 25-7-7.4, do not say that the obligee parent cannot modify a payment. Charlotte had the payment in hand and for whatever reason, not attributable to any misconduct on the part of Gordon, she returned it. I am also troubled by the allowance of interest on the back payments. Granted that Gordon failed to properly raise the affirmative defenses of laches, waiver and estoppel on the issue of the back payments themselves, but I think that the fact that Charlotte waited until a considerable amount of ar-rearages had accumulated before seeking to enforce the agreement can be considered on the equitable aspect of allowance of interest. I think that the trial court could well have denied interest on that basis but, not having done so, I cannot say that it was a clear abuse of discretion on its part; so, I reluctantly join in the affirmation of that issue.