Court Opinion

ID: 9583659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:40:57.190996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:31.062983
License: Public Domain

Justice PLEICONES:
I agree with the majority that the Court of Appeals erred in adopting the void/voidable approach and therefore agree that its decision should be reversed. However, I disagree with the majority that the case by case approach is the best alternative and would adopt automatic termination as the most appropriate method for terminating the payor spouse’s periodic alimony obligation. Therefore, I would not remand the case to the family court.
One of the Cargill factors to be considered in the case by case approach is the length of the subsequent marriage. In South Carolina, alimony can be terminated under the ninety day cohabitation statute.5 S.C.Code Ann. § 20-8-130(B) (Supp.2002). The ninety day cohabitation rule does not require that the couple cohabit while married, only that the “supported spouse reside[] with another person in a romantic relationship for a period of ninety or more consecutive days.” Id.6 In my opinion, if residing with another in a romantic relationship for ninety days, without being married, terminates alimony, then marrying, regardless of the length of the marriage or whether it was legal, should terminate alimony. The intent of the payee spouse is important. Whether the *459payee spouse lives in a romantic relationship with another or marries another, the payee spouse enters into the relationship fully aware that periodic alimony will terminate.
There are several policy considerations that, in my opinion, make automatic termination a better rule. The case by case approach seems to imply that a payee spouse would not remarry were it not for the existence of a substitute source of support. I do not agree with this implication. Further, the automatic termination approach provides a bright line rule that is predictable. Under the case by case or void/voidable approach, a payor spouse could conceivably be in limbo for years, assuming that the ninety day rule were not triggered. While inequitable results could obtain for either spouse under any approach, the certainty of the automatic termination approach makes it the most appealing. If either party should bear the risk of uncertainty arising out of entry into a new relationship, it should be the payee spouse. Therefore, I would hold automatic termination is the appropriate rule.
WALLER, J., concurs.

. Although this statute does not apply in this case because the action was filed in 1999, before the effective date, I note that the ninety day rule will remove most future cases from the ambit of the case by case approach.

. The ninety day rule cannot be defeated by cessation of cohabitation for brief periods for that purpose. Rather, "tacking” of the periods is allowed. S.C.Code Ann. § 20-3-130(B) (Supp.2002).