Court Opinion

ID: 9849703
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:44:41.39471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:24.941300
License: Public Domain

Bussey, Justice
(dissenting).
Upon the record before us, I am unable to agree with the majority view that the custody of the minor children in this case should be given to the appellant husband in accordance with the order of the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Greenville County. However, as the custody of these children, now with the wife, should no.t be disturbed again during a school year, now about to commence, I shall not delay the filing of the majority opinion by taking the time to either fully review the evidence or set forth my reasons for dissent, which have been communicated to the other members of the court.
The husband and wife in this case have been separated now for over three years, during most of which custody of the children has been with the wife. The record] to my mind, gives rise to the inference that the husband is a jealous, suspicious, possessive type of individual. Shortly after the separation agreement, he commenced constant surveillance of his wife, personally, through semi-pro and amateur detectives, and apparently the children themselves, in an effort to obtain evidence of some wrongful conduct on the part of his wife. In the final analysis, the order of the trial co.urt granting a divorce and taking custody of the children away from the wife rests on little more than a finding, on strongly conflicting evidence, that the wife on a single date committed *430adultery, which finding of fact was based on the testimony of plaintiff’s barber and the son of the barber, other detective efforts on the part of the husband having failed. The circuit court did not concur in such finding but, on the theory that there was some evidence to. support it, did not reverse the decree of divorce.
The order of the trial court taking the custody of the children away from the wife was entered some eighteen months after her alleged wrongful conduct was brought to the attention of the court, and nearly one year after the final hearing of the matter, which is a strong indication that the trial court doubted the sufficiency of the evidence to support a divorce decree. Except for the one instance of adultery found by the trial court, other circumstances relied upon as tending to incriminate the wife are largely, if not fully, explained by uncontradicted evidence consistent with her innocence.
As pointed out in the order of the circuit court, any evidence or facts, in the record, concerning the true welfare of the children and the proper disposition of their custody seem to have been purely incidental to the main issue of divorce. The circuit judge concluded that the evidence in the record was totally insufficient to support the conclusion of the trial judge that the children should be taken away from the wife, and that in do,ing so, the trial court erroneously overlooked or ignored several pertinent legal principles.
While I fully agree with the foregoing conclusions of the circuit judge, it does not necessarily follow that this disposition of the custody of the children is correct. The record, to my mind, is sufficient to raise, but not answer, the question as to what is truly in the best interest of the children, whose ultimate welfare is always the primary concern in custody cases. It is my view that the order of the circuit court should be modified and the cause remanded to the trial court for the purpose of taking full testimony, addressed to what is in the true interest of the children, and awarding this custody in the light thereof and all pertinent principles of law, *431some of which I think were clearly ignored by the trial court in its order.
Brailsford, J., concurs.