South Carolina Supreme Court upholds contested eviction order

A magistrate court has the authority to conduct an eviction proceeding even where the tenant claims the purported landlord does not hold title to the property, the South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled, reinstating an eviction order.

In 2009, Jessie Mae Smith owned the home at 1429 LeGrand Smoak St., Cordova. Beginning then, Jessie Mae allowed Rufus and Merle Rivers to live in the home rent free. There was never a written lease agreement.

In 2013, Jessie Mae executed a power of attorney designating her son, James Smith Jr., as her “authorized agent.”

Smith, acting on behalf of Jessie Mae pursuant to the power of attorney, transferred the Cordova property to himself in 2014. The deed was duly recorded in the Orangeburg County Register of Deeds office.

Jessie Mae died in 2016.

In July 2018, Smith wrote the Riverses a letter stating that he planned to sell the property, and they had 30 days to vacate the home.

When the Riverses objected, Smith filed a “Rule to Vacate or Show Cause (Eviction)” in magistrate court.

Following a hearing — during which Rufus testified that Jessie May verbally agreed to give the property to the Riverses — the magistrate court ordered the Riverses to be evicted. They appealed, arguing that the magistrate court lacked jurisdiction because they had challenged the validity of Smith’s ownership.

The circuit court affirmed the magistrate court’s decision, but the Court of Appeals reversed.

In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice John Cannon Few, the state’s highest court reversed.

The statute that is now subsection 22-3-20(2) was enacted in 1870 and has not been amended since except to add the word “magistrate” in place of the original “trial justice.” It provides, “No magistrate shall have cognizance of a civil action … [w]hen the title to real property shall come into question, except as provided in Article 11 of this chapter.”

From the beginning, tenants in landlord-tenant relationships subject to eviction proceedings attempted to use the statute to avoid being evicted by claiming the purported landlord did not have title to the property.

In 1878 (State v. Fickling) and 1924 (Stewart-Jones Co. v. Shehan), the court interpreted the statute in two distinct ways that specifically permitted magistrates to proceed with eviction cases in light of such a claim, neither of which was acknowledged in the Court of Appeals opinion, “and both of which are squarely inconsistent with the court of appeals’ reasoning here,” the court said. “The Fickling court … [found] the 1870 General Assembly did not intend that what is now subsection 22-3-20(2) would preclude magistrates courts from conducting eviction proceedings, even when the tenant challenges the landlord’s title to the property.”

Similarly, the Stewart-Jones court found that a magistrate could proceed with an eviction proceeding upon the factual finding that a landlord-tenant relationship exists.

“Thus, looking back on our decisions over 104 years … it becomes crystal clear that the magistrates court is not deprived of the authority to conduct an eviction proceeding simply because the tenant claims the purported landlord does not hold title to the property,” the court explained. “Rather, the magistrates court must first answer the primarily factual question of whether a landlord-tenant agreement exists between the parties. If the magistrates court finds that it does, then the magistrate may proceed to determine whether the tenant breached the agreement and, if so, whether eviction is warranted.”

Applying this longstanding rule, the court noted that the magistrate wrote that “there was no question of title regarding the owner’s identity.”

From that ruling, the existence of a landlord-tenant relationship followed, and the circuit court interpreted the magistrate court, accordingly, writing that the “Riverses are the tenants of Smith.”

When Smith took title to the property in 2014, he became the landlord under the oral agreement, and the Rivers continued to live on the property for five years after Smith obtained title — and two years after Jessie Mae died — without challenging Smith’s ownership of the property.

“Thus, the record clearly supports the magistrates court’s and the circuit court’s factual determination that a landlord-tenant relationship existed between Smith and the Rivers, and the magistrates court had the authority to hear the eviction proceeding,” Few wrote.

Reading Fickling and Stewart-Jones together, it was never the intent of the General Assembly to deprive magistrate courts of the authority to hear eviction actions simply because the tenant claims the landlord does not have title, the court reiterated. Rather, if the magistrate court finds the existence of a landlord-tenant agreement, the tenant may not challenge the title he previously contracted to recognize.

“In the vast majority of modern cases, this question will be resolved by reference to a written landlord-tenant agreement,” the court added. “In those rare cases in which the alleged landlord-tenant agreement is not written, the magistrates court should determine in the first place — precisely as Judge [Stephanie] McKune-Grant did in this case — whether the purported landlord has demonstrated that the tenant has been paying rent, or that the public record of the county indicates he has title to the property. The purported landlord’s presentation of evidence demonstrating either of those facts will ordinarily suffice to satisfy the landlord’s burden. If the magistrates court determines for whatever reason there is no landlord-tenant agreement, that ends the case, and the identity of the true title holder must be litigated in another forum. If, on the other hand, the magistrates court determines there is a landlord-tenant agreement, the court should proceed to determine whether the tenant breached the agreement in a manner that warrants eviction.”

The court reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the magistrate court’s eviction order.

Columbia attorney Kathleen M. McDaniel of Burnette Shutt & McDaniel, who represented Smith, praised the decision for providing clarity on the issue, but noted that the case was originally filed in 2018.

“The biggest takeaway is not to assume that it’s going to be easy to evict someone,” she said. “There are a lot of protections for tenants, which are important. So, lawyers seeking an eviction need to make sure they provide the magistrate court with all the documentation of ownership and get it into evidence so there is no question about title.”

The Riverses represented themselves pro se.

The case is Rivers v. Smith, No. 28260. •