Fielden v. Fielden

Supreme Court of South Carolina

Fielden v. Fielden

262 S.E.2d 43, 274 S.C. 219, 1980 S.C. LEXIS 274

CourtSupreme Court of South Carolina

DecidedJanuary 17, 1980

Docket21128

StatusPublished

Cited by12 cases

This text of 262 S.E.2d 43 (Fielden v. Fielden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

Fielden v. Fielden, 262 S.E.2d 43, 274 S.C. 219, 1980 S.C. LEXIS 274 (S.C. 1980).

Pincite

Opinion

Per Curiam:

This appeal is taken from an Order of the Family Court, issued March 30, 1979, interpreting and enforcing a provision of a Separation Agreement en *220 tered into between the parties on November 10, 1977. The record before this Court is void of any indication that this agreement was incorporated or merged into any Family Court order issued prior to the Order now on appeal. 1 The action is then of a contractual nature.

Family Courts have no subject matter jurisdiction over actions in contract. Zwerling v. Zwerling, S. C. 255 S. E. (2d) 850 (1979); McGrew v. McGrew, S. C., 257 S. E. (2d) 743 (1979). Lack of subject matter jurisdiction cannot be waived and should be taken notice of by this Court on its own motion. Harden v. S. C. H. D., 266 S. C. 119, 221 S. E. (2d) 851 (1976); McCullough v. McCullough, 242 S. C. 108, 130 S. E. (2d) 77 (1963).

Accordingly, the Order of the Family Court is vacated.

1

This Court is aware of the May 16, 1979 Divorce Decree which incorporated the 1977 Separation Agreement. However, that event, which occurred subsequent to entry of the Order on appeal, cannot operate to cure the Family Court’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction at the time that Order was issued.

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