The South Carolina Court of Appeals issued a ruling on June 20, 2024 in the matter of Carter v Carter involving several equitable apportionment issues.  The Carters were married 19 years and had several children, all of whom were emancipated at the time of trial, save for a daughter with permanent disabilities.

Husband had remained in the marital residence after separation and filing and made all mortgage payments up until the date of trial, reducing the mortgage by about $40,000.  At trial, one of Husband's equitable apportionment requests involved valuing the mortgage balance on date of filing, as per the South Carolina Code.  The Court denied Husband's request and valued the mortgage debt on the date of trial, thus reducing Wife's share of marital debt by about $20,000.

On appeal, Husband argued that the statute is clear and all marital values be must be established as of the date of filing.  While agreeing with the general premise of Husband's argument, the Court went further to point out that Wife was a homemaker who also made a significant contribution to the marital estate in ways not solely financial.  The Court  of Appeals stated:

The law protects a homemaker's interest in marital property by assigning value to her indirect contribution to the accumulation of the martial estate. Johnson v. Johnson, 296 S.C. 289, 298, 372 S.E.2d 107, 112 (Ct. App. 1988). A homemaker's indirect contributions to a marriage in the form of caring for the parties' home and children enables the other spouse to work outside the home and accumulate wealth for the parties' mutual benefit. Id. We are not persuaded by Husband's argument that Wife's contribution to the marriage necessarily ends when the homemaker moves out of the marital home and leaves the marriage. Wife spent the entire marriage tending to the children and the home, and this duty continued after she left the marriage because she was still solely responsible for caring for the couple's incapacitated adult daughter, ZZ. Her full-time duties as caretaker prohibited her from making financial contributions to the marital home, but nevertheless constituted a contribution to the marriage.

The homemaker contribution is sometimes not as fully developed in a family law case as it should be.  Wife's lawyers apparently made an excellent presentation to the Court regarding Wife's non financial contributions to the marital estate, and the Court saw them being of similar value to Husband's financial contributions.

Women who work inside the home during a long term marriage suffer disproportionately to their male spouses upon divorce. Establishing a woman's contribution the the acquisition of marital assets by way of her homemaker contribution is essential to ensure that she is treated fairly in the divorce proceedings.

Guy Vitetta

Charleston