Townsend v. Rogers

THIS OPINION HAS NO
PRECEDENTIAL VALUE.  IT SHOULD NOT BE CITED OR RELIED ON AS PRECEDENT IN ANY
PROCEEDING EXCEPT AS PROVIDED BY RULE 239(d)(2), SCACR.

THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA

In The Court of Appeals

Michelle
Stephens Stokes Townsend f/k/a Michelle Stephens Stokes, Appellant,

v.

Charles Jack Rogers and Mary R. Guy, Respondents.

Appeal From Greenville County

 G. Thomas Cooper, Jr., Circuit Court
Judge

Unpublished Opinion No. 2008-UP-171

Submitted March 3, 2008 – Filed March 12,
2008   

AFFIRMED

Adam  Fisher, Jr., of Greenville, for Appellant

E. Zachary Horton, of Greenville, for Respondents.

PER CURIAM:  Michelle Stephens Stokes Townsend appeals the circuit
court’s referral of this case to the master-in-equity.  We affirm[1] pursuant to Rule 220, SCACR, and the following authorities:  Marion
Cotton Oil Co. v. Townsend, 222 S.C.
32, 36, 71 S.E.2d 500, 501 (1952) (stating there is a “distinction between a
suit on an account and one for accounting, for while the latter is strictly an
equitable cause, it is not true of the former”):  Peets v. Wright, 117
S.C. 409, 109 S.E. 649, 653 (1921) (“Accounting for waste, for betterments, and
for rents among co-tenants is now recognized as an incident to the right of
partition, and the universal practice for the Court of equity is to adjust all
these matters in the suit for partition.”); Laughin v. O’ Braitis, 360
S.C. 520, 524, 602 S.E.2d 108, 110 (Ct. App. 2004) (stating a partition action,
as well as an action for accounting, is an action in equity); Ackerman v.
Heard, 287 S.C. 626, 629, 340 S.E.2d 560, 562 (Ct. App. 1986) (stating
compensation to a co-tenant is allowed not as a matter of legal right but
purely from the desire of a court of equity to do justice and to prevent the
one tenant from becoming enriched at the expense of another).

AFFIRMED.

HUFF,
KITTREDGE, and WILLIAMS, JJ. concur. 

[1] We decide this case without oral argument pursuant to
Rule 215, SCACR.