Clik here to view.
Jury finds no support for plaintiffs’ subflooring-based demand
Two West Columbia homeowners looking for an extreme makeover will collect no damages from the contractors that renovated their home after jurors returned a verdict for the defense on all counts. Jolene...
View ArticleClik here to view.
DSS, placement service settle sex abuse suit with disabled child
At age 10 the boy already had a thick and disturbing social services case file. He’d taken a knife and stabbed his older brother in the left eye and had a habit of plucking the left eyes from his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SC Supreme Court takes second whack at GPS for sex offenders
Big questions that bubbled up in the wake of the South Carolina Supreme Court’s first ruling on the constitutionality of satellite monitoring have been answered in a second recent decision, though a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two-timing man claims duplicity of the legal kind
Justice Kaye Hearn seemed to relish the recent task of writing the state Supreme Court’s opinion in State v. Samuels, seizing the opportunity to expound on both the legal and common understandings of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Flu-shot refusal can’t derail jobless benefits
After working for 26 years at AnMed Health hospital in Anderson, Pamela Crowe was placed in an intractable dilemma—whether to sacrifice her job, or get the same flu shot that she believed killed her...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Insurance claim documents not ‘work product’
A recent South Carolina District Court decision on a motion to compel discovery held that reports prepared in the ordinary course of business of adjusting insurance claims are not protected as “work...
View ArticleClik here to view.
SC lags behind in use of predictive coding
Discovery for major litigation once meant junior attorneys would spend thousands of hours doing the mind-numbingly repetitive work of sifting through documents, identifying the ones that had to be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Supreme Court OKs warrantless DNA collection
WASHINGTON – Likening the practice to fingerprinting, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a Maryland law authorizing the warrantless collection of DNA samples from suspects accused of certain serious...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drunk-driving wreck an ‘accident’ for insurance purposes
Everyone knows what an “accident” is – until a court decision hinges on the meaning of the word, at which point it becomes as enigmatic as a Rorschach test. Indeed, the question of whether...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Off-camera DUI action
Call it the Kardashian defense: Two separate drunken-driving suspects sought to have their charges dismissed on the basis that they didn’t get to be on-camera long enough at the police station. But the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ignorance no defense in tenant’s defect claim
Beach season brings the obligatory sun, surf and throngs of tourists, along with a brand new crop of lawsuits over the many mishaps that go down this time of year at rented retreats along the coast....
View ArticleClik here to view.
No signature on mortgage, note means widow has no liability
A recent decision by the state Court of Appeals serves to remind mortgage companies that in order to hold a spouse liable for a mortgage, they must ensure the spouse signs the note and mortgage. In...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In defense of student privacy
BOSTON — When tragedy strikes, rational judgment becomes vulnerable to passions of anger, sadness and fear. Any grade-schooler knows that an accused in the United States is innocent until proven...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Baby Veronica ruling creates custody conundrum
The old adage that possession is nine-tenths of the law took on new and ominous meaning for some fathers after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week in the protracted custody battle over a young...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Probation clock doesn’t stop during treatment
A novel ruling from the S.C. Supreme Court allows sex offenders to complete their probation at the same time they are in a treatment program for violent predators under a civil commitment – meaning...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Affirmative action survives, under tougher standard
WASHINGTON – It was a case that could have led to the constitutional condemnation of school affirmative action policies across the country. But instead, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in Fisher...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Another week, another OK for non-attorneys to perform law-like tasks
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for the South Carolina Supreme Court as it declares things not to be the practice of law. One week after the high court ruled that non-attorneys could present claims...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Keeping what you know
Imagine that your law firm has, squirreled away somewhere in storage, a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. You own the bones of a six-ton prehistoric beast that could net big bucks and inspire envy among...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hospital’s maneuver falls flat with high court
One hospital came up with what it must have thought was a pretty slick escape route to get out of a malpractice lawsuit, but the South Carolina Supreme Court blocked the exit. The court ruled that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Toyota fends off suit claiming defective airbag caused death
The mother of a woman who died in a rollover crash in Aiken County failed to convince a jury that a defective airbag was to blame for her daughter’s death. Alacia Quinton had sought $5 million in...
View Article