A refiled December 9, 2020 Court of Appeals opinion in Sellers v. Nicholls, 432 S.C. 101, 851 S.E.2d 54 (Ct. App. 2020), makes two minor changes to the original August 5, 2020 opinion, which I wrote about here.
The first change is the addition of footnote three, which reads:
After a thorough review of the record it appears the denial of the motion for a continuance occurred after the case was older than 365 days; thus, it is possible the family court denied the motion based on the 365-day rule. See RE: Family Court Benchmark, S.C. Sup. Ct. Order dated Aug. 27, 2014. (“Once a case older than 365 days has been scheduled for a final hearing, only the Chief Administrative Judge for the circuit or county may continue it, even if the request for continuance is received by the assigned judge during the week of trial.”). However, the family court did not note in the record that it relied on the 365-day rule and neither party raised the rule on appeal.
The second change is a clarification, adding the term “non” to “custodial” in the last portion of this sentence:
Our supreme court also weighed the following factors from the Pennsylvania Superior Court: (1) the economic and other potential advantages of the move; (2) the likelihood the move would substantially improve the quality of life for the custodial parent and the children and is not the result of a whim of the custodial parent; (3) the motives behind the parent’s reasons for seeking or opposing the move; and (4) the availability of a realistic substitute visitation arrangement that will adequately foster an ongoing relationship between the non- custodial parent and the children.
Nothing in these revisions changes the prior analysis of the Court of Appeals’ opinion.
