Wayne Hopper, Legal Assistant Sorey v. Sorey, 757 S.E.2d 518 (2014) Divorce is not something anyone expects when they get married. The end of a marriage can be more difficult when one spouse has engaged in behavior that violates the fundamental tenets of marriage. Such behavior is considered marital misconduct…
Maddukuri v. Chintanippu, 2022-NCCOA-128 (1 March 2022) Stipulations are often used to expedite portions of a case/trial so that there is no time wasted on them, allowing the court to focus on the issues that are actually in contention. The use of stipulations of fact is pretty common. It removes…
A person’s gender identity is defined as their innate sense of belonging to a particular gender. It specifically differs from the gender assigned at birth, which is based on the presence of external genitalia. Gender identify is something that develops biologically along with the body and mind. Accordingly, a transgender…
Wayne Hopper, Legal Assistant STEWART v. STEWART, 141 NC App. 236 Dividing assets collected throughout a marriage is an unfortunate but necessary undertaking with divorce. This process can cause conflict, especially when the asset was brought into the marriage by one party. In North Carolina, a business stake or an…
Williams v. Johnson, 2022-NCCOA-120 (2022) (unpublished). Facts: Mother and Father were in a custody case over their minor child. On April 28, 2017, Mother was awarded primary custody, and Father received visitation. A few years later, on August 11, 2020, the trial court modified the custody but later vacated their…
Wayne Hopper, Legal Assistant King v. Huizar (In re Huizar), 609 BR 482 Only a handful of states still recognize alienation of affection and criminal conversation as actionable torts. North Carolina is one of those states. These claims have their roots in old English law, where a man could essentially…
Imagine separating from your husband but never filing for divorce. Now imagine separating from your husband, never filing for divorce, and learning years later that you had actually been divorced for approximately 12 years. This is exactly what happened to a woman living in the United Kingdom. Rachpal and…
Wayne Hopper, Legal Assistant Williams v. Williams, 261 S.E.2d 849 (1980) Alimony (also called spousal support in North Carolina) is a form of financial support awarded during a divorce proceeding and serves as a means to assist a dependent spouse post marriage. A “dependent spouse” is a person substantially reliant…
Wooten v. Wooten, III, 2022-NCCOA-121, (unpublished). Here in North Carolina, separation agreements are treated the same as contracts. This means the parties can be more flexible with their terms and agreements, not necessarily confined to the stricter terms that a court order would typically proscribe. One such provision is the…
As COVID-19 persists in our daily lives, the war on vaccines rages on. Many parents continue to disagree about vaccination status concerning themselves and their minor children. Two parents who currently reside in New Brunswick, Canada, have found themselves in a heated disagreement with each other over vaccines and sought…