Lanier v. Lanier, 18780
| Decision Date | 11 April 1968 |
| Docket Number | No. 18780,18780 |
| Citation | 251 S.C. 117,160 S.E.2d 558 |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | Alfred R. LANIER, Respondent, v. Dorothy L. LANIER, Appellant. |
E. Windell McCrackin, Myrtle Beach, for appellant.
J. M. Long, Myrtle Beach, for respondent.
In this action for divorce the question for decision is whether the county judge erred by refusing to relieve the wife of her default and to permit her to file an answer.
The action was commenced by service of the summons and complaint on the wife on January 6, 1967. Shortly after the expiration of the time for answering the complaint, she filed a verified petition stating that the reason for her failure to answer the complaint was that the parties resumed cohabitation as husband and wife on January 22, 1967, and continued to live together until January 28, 1967, when the husband left the marital abode. At the same time, the wife served a proposed answer in which she pled the resumption of cohabitation, with full knowledge by the husband of the charges against her, as condonation of the said offenses and as a defense to the action for divorce.
After a delay in the hearing of the wife's petition, apparently because of the illness of the judge, the husband secured an order granting him exclusive temporary custody of the children of the parties.
On July 10, 1967, the husband filed a verified petition in which he sought the dismissal of the wife's petition for leave to answer and an adjudication that she was in default. In this petition the husband stated that 'the matters and things alleged in the proposed answer by the defendant were false and fictitious, and that no part of same is true.' However, this petition further alleged that in an attempt to accomplish a reconciliation the husband resumed living with his wife on May 25, 1967, and the parties continued to live together until June 8, 1967, when the wife absconded taking with her the children and all available money.
By the order appealed from, the court denied the wife's petition for leave to answer, declared her to be in default and declared the husband to be entitled to an order of reference 'without further notice to the (wife).' Recognizing that the law does not favor defaults in divorce actions, the court stated that ordinarily the wife's motion for leave to answer should be granted. However, the court found that she was not 'due any further consideration' in this case because of her conduct in taking the children and depriving the husband of his right to their custody in 'direct violation' of the previous order of the court.
Even assuming that the order granting exclusive custody to the husband...
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Doe v. Doe, 0550
...which must be pleaded, if the evidence shows condonation, it is the duty of the court to so find without pleading. Lanier v. Lanier, 251 S.C. 117, 160 S.E.2d 558 (1968). Our Supreme Court has also held that the defense of condonation may even be raised for the first time on appeal. McLaughl......
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Murphy v. Murphy, 20466
...dismissal as to both the Rule and the petition, even though the appellant had not pled condonation as a defense. See Lanier v. Lanier, 251 S.C. 117, 160 S.E.2d 558 (1968); McLaughlin v. McLaughlin, 244 S.C. 265, 136 S.E.2d 537 (1964). This order was reduced to writing and signed on July 19,......
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Rajcich v. Rajcich, 19215
...against collusion and other questionable methods, particularly in case of default.' In light of our recent case of Lanier v. Lanier, 251 S.C. 117, 160 S.E.2d 558 (1963) on similar facts, we conclude that the facts alleged here make out a prima facie case of excusable neglect. In Lanier we r......
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Neves v. Neves, 18919
...or condonation. After the decree of divorce, counsel for the wife, based on the decisions of this court in Lanier v. Lanier, 251 S.C. 117, 160 S.E.2d 558 (1968) and McLaughlin v. McLaughlin, 244 S.C. 265, 136 S.E.2d 537 (1964), became apprehensive that he and the trial court might have been......