General Assembly Amended Chapter 50 to Allow Independent Appeals From Absolute Divorce, Divorce from Bed and Board, Child Custody, Child Support, Alimony or Equitable Distribution.

Let’s say your divorce client is bitterly unhappy with the result of her equitable distribution hearing. 

You re-read the law and the trial transcript and confirm to yourself what you knew all along: the order can be appealed. You advise your client accordingly and brace for the inevitable: she wants to appeal right away. Immediately. Yesterday, if at all possible. But your client still has her alimony claims pending. Now what? 

In the olden days, you were stuck. You could have yourself an immediate appeal of the unfortunate equitable distribution judgment, or you could have yourself and alimony claim. But not both, because so long as the alimony claims was unresolved, your appeal of equitable distribution would most likely be considered interlocutory and dismissed. 

Tough choice. 

Postpone the appeal for months or even years that it takes to get an alimony hearing, and you risk that assets disappear. Or give up a perfectly good alimony claim for the habitual uncertainty of appeal? Sophie’s choice, indeed. Happily, you no longer have to face this horror, just as long as the trial court’s order you are appealing dates after 10:52 a.m. on August 23, 2013. 

August 23rd is the date when the Governor ratified House Bill 122, allowing appeals from absolute divorce, divorce from bed and board, child custody, child support, alimony or equitable distribution, even if the other claims are still pending. For the text of the new law, click here.

But what about the stay of action pending appeal, you ask? If I appeal the equitable distribution order, will the trial court refuse to hear my alimony claim until the appeal is decided? Not at all. It will be business as usual in trial court. The drafters made sure that the rest of your business before the trial court will not be disturbed by these newly minted rights to appeal. Amended N.C. Gen. Stat. §50-19.1 explicitly says so: “an appeal from an order or judgment under this section shall not deprive the trial court of jurisdiction over any claims pending in the same action.” 

And for those conservatives who liked the wait-and-see approach of the good old days, nothing needs to change either. Do not want to take your chances in alimony trial with the judge whose equitable distribution judgment you just appealed? You do not have to. “A party does not forfeit the right to appeal . . . if the party fails to immediately appeal from the order for [absolute divorce, divorce from bed and board, child custody, child support, alimony or equitable distribution].” The drafters thought of everything, making the new 50-19.1 a real triumph of common sense.