Court Opinion

ID: 9673173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:07:37.858983+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:20.493266
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice, concurring. The majority has reached the only result it can, unless a small number of people are to be the victims of a legal hiatus. The United States Supreme Court in Orr v. Orr, 440 U.S. 268 (1979), held in effect that most of the alimony statutes in this country were unconstitutional. That decision would not have created too serious a problem if alimony had been a right recognized by common law. But it is not. Alimony is essentially a creature of statute. Certainly, this has always been the rule in Arkansas. If one followed a legalistic line of logic, then the appellee could be denied her right to alimony because the chancellor, after Orr, would have no authority to grant it. However, to deny the appellee alimony would be a greater judicially created injustice than that which some may think the majority is committing here. I think the majority is simply granting to a small number of people a right that people before them, who were members of the same class, and people after them, who are members of the same class, would have. Unless this grant is made, this small number of people will not have a right, which would be a great injustice. I do not believe the chancery courts have the inherent power to deal with this. I think the majority is giving the courts that power, a decision in which I concur. Stroud, J., joins in this concurrence.