Supreme Court sides with ex-DM&E boss in divorce
The South Dakota Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled in favor of former DM&E Railroad boss Kevin Schieffer in a dispute over his divorce settlement.
Schieffer had a $5 million prenuptial agreement.
I confess I only scanned the ruling, but it seems the justices spent a long time trying to determine how much financial child support is appropriate in cases where the parents are very wealthy.
Which led to this phenomenal footnote:
It is always a matter of balance, of course, between setting an amount that will care for the children’s actual needs and permit them to enjoy a standard of living commensurate with what they would have had if the parents had not been divorced. This does not mean that children must be supported at the highest standard of living attainable by the parents’ income.15
…
15. This is sometimes called the “Three Pony Rule.” No child, no matter how wealthy the parents, needs more than three ponies. In re Marriage of Patterson, 920 P.2d. 450, 455 (Kan. Ct. App. 1996).
