Court Opinion

ID: 9540891
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:20:30.855964+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:28.112570
License: Public Domain

Goolsby, Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent from the view taken by the majority *433that the evidence in this case satisfies the criteria prescribed by the Supreme Court in Risinger v. Risinger, 273 S. C. 36, 253 S. C. (2d) 652 (1979).1 In particular, I am unconvinced that the son proved by a preponderance of the evidence that he could not “otherwise go to school.” 273 S. C. at 39, 253 S. E. (2d) at 653-54.
I recognize that the son applied for and received two grants and that he saved about $1,000.00. Still, he could do more. For instance, he could borrow money and he could work part-time during college. Many others have done so in their effort to get a college education.
Regarding any effort to borrow money, the son testified, “I haven’t had to borrow — I haven’t tried to borrow any but I could.”
As to working part-time, he showed no intention of securing a part-time job. In the first place, he simply did not “believe [he] should have to pay anything ... to go to college.” Moreover, he wanted to play football and he could not play football and work at the same time. He allowed that “football at a college is a year-round sport or a year-round thing. You’re always doing something with that, whether it’s off-season training, weight lifting, running. There wouldn’t be any time [for a part-time job].”
While it is true the son at the time of the hearing had earned about $125.00 a month by helping his aunt around her yard and garden, he did not attempt to save it for college expenses. Rather, the money was “used for spending money to go out on the weekends.”
*434I know of no principle of law that requires a divorced parent to help an able-bodied adult child who will not help himself. Neither do I know of any principle that requires a divorced parent to subsidize an adult child’s playing of college football.
In my view, Risinger should apply only where there is true hardship.
I would reverse.

 I note that the father did not challenge on equal protection grounds the constitutionality of the statute which Risinger interprets and on which the Supreme Court bases its holding, what is now Section 20-7-420(17) of the South Carolina Code of Laws (1976). It seems to me that a serious constitutional problem is presented in cases like the one here, given our Supreme Court’s view of the equal protection clause. Cf. Elam v. Elam, 275 S. C. 132, 268 S. E. (2d) 109 (1980)(wherein statute abrogating parental immunity doctrine held unconstitutional on equal protection grounds because it applied only to motor vehicle accident cases); Marley v. Kirby, 271 S. C. 122, 245 S. E. (2d) 604 (1978) (wherein comparative negligence statute declared unconstitutional on equal protection grounds because it applied only to motor vehicle accidents). Is there any logical justification for the distinction our law apparently makes between adult children of divorced parents and either adult children of married parents or adult children of a widow or widower? See Note, Domestic Relations, 32 S. C. L. R. 105 at 118 (1980).