Howell v. Howell (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-050-15, 5 pp.) (Per Curiam) Appealed from Berkeley County Family Court (Judy McMahon, J.) S.C. App. Unpub.
Holding: The family court may not modify court-ordered property divisions, even as a sanction for contempt.
We affirm the family court’s decision to hold the defendant-husband in contempt but reverse its improper modification of the parties’ equitable distribution order.
The parties agreed, “At such time as the [rental] property may be sold,” they would “equally divide the net proceeds derived from any sale.” However, the family court later imposed a civil contempt sanction in which the husband was required to pay the wife one-half of the rent collected each month from the apartment complex (Property) as an “advance on her rights of equitable distribution.”
This order materially altered the parties’ agreement regarding the equitable division of the Property. Accordingly, the family court improperly modified the equitable distribution order when it imposed the above sanction.
The provision requiring the husband to pay the wife half of the rents cannot be construed as compensatory contempt. An award of compensatory contempt should be used to reimburse the wife for the costs she incurred to force the husband to comply with the court’s order and should be the equivalent of the wife’s actual damages.
The family court never referred to the division of rent proceeds as compensatory contempt in its order. Instead, it explicitly said the wife would be receiving these proceeds as an “advance on her rights of equitable distribution” because the wife “has a 50 percent interest” in the Property and business.
We fail to see how giving the wife her portion of the equity in the Property now, rather than when the Property sells as required by the parties’ agreement, can be construed as reimbursing the wife for the costs she incurred in bringing the contempt action. Thus, we reverse this portion of the family court’s contempt order.
While the family court may impose a fine, a public works sentence, or a term of imprisonment on the husband as a contempt sanction, its sanction may not modify the parties’ equitable distribution order. Therefore, we remand for the family court to issue an order setting forth a contempt sanction that complies with this opinion.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
