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2006 S.D. 48

Lowe v. Schwartz

South Dakota Supreme Court

Decided June 7, 2006

South Dakota Supreme Court · decided 2006-06-07

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 2006-06-07

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently February 2025

10 state decisions

60200620102020decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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SABERS, Justice

¶1(dissenting).

¶2[¶ 21.] If the majority opinion has its facts right, the trial court’s decision in this case is plain error and we should reverse and remand until it is done right.

1. Lowe’s net worth decreased from $865,000 to $80,000, a total of $285,000 after Schwartz’s retirement from the Coast Guard.
2. Her income went from $101,098 in 1997 to being self-employed, selling “beanie babies and beads” over the internet after her heart attack in June 2000.
3. The trial court awarded her the grand sum of $135 per month alimony even though Schwartz was earning at least $2,200 per month as a truck driver and collecting $1,359 per month from Coast Guard retirement, a total of $3,559 per month or $42,708 per year.
4. The $135 per month alimony was only 10 percent of Schwartz’s Coast Guard retirement and only S.79 percent of his total monthly income.

¶3[¶ 22.] Maybe this result is the fault of Lowe’s trial attorney, as the majority opinion suggests, but the trial court’s decision is a total injustice, plain error, and an abuse of discretion and we should have no part of it except to reverse.

¶4[¶ 23.] We should reverse and remand for the trial court to do it over until it is done right.

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