Unwanted services, alleged kickbacks lead to lawsuit
According to an attorney representing homeowners in a Bluffton, South Carolina, subdivision, litigation and a vote by the residents has pulled the plug on an agreement requiring them to pay for bundled...
View ArticleHard line is drawn between ‘guidelines’ and ‘Rulemaking’
The running gag in the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean” is that the Pirate’s Code “is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.” For lawyers who must navigate the ocean of regulations put...
View ArticleMost Important Opinions Third Quarter 2016
Administrative Maryland Lawyer Must Provide SSN, or Lose License Tankersley v. Almand (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-141-16, 41 pp.) (Diaz, J.) No. 15-1081, Sept. 13, 2016; USDC at Baltimore, Md. (Bennett,...
View ArticleOrder terminating parental rights vacated over jurisdiction ruling
After a woman with a troubled past was found sitting in the middle of the road with her child, a South Carolina family court judge terminated her parental rights. But the Court of Appeals has reversed...
View ArticleWant to move to Canada? Not so easy, attorneys say
Every election season, you tend to hear the same refrain: “If such-and-such wins the election, I’m moving to Canada.” (Or Europe, etc.) But this year, for some reason or another, an unusually high...
View ArticleEight-year delay was speedy-trial violation
Georgia prosecutors brought Alexander Hunsberger to trial less than two years after taking custody of the murder and kidnapping defendant. But prosecutors in South Carolina spent a decade preparing to...
View ArticleMUSC wins case, sanctioned for violations
The Medical University of South Carolina will have to pay sanctions of more than $87,000 in attorney’s fees and costs for a “pattern of discovery abuse,” according to a Charleston County circuit court....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Burnette to get S.C. Women Lawyers group’s highest honor
Callison Tighe partner M. Malissa Burnette has never been one to hold her tongue when she sees people being treated unfairly. In fact, she said her death will likely be caused by “being sarcastic at...
View ArticleWhistleblowers v. fraudsters: False Claims Act being used in health care field
In 2005, Tuomey Healthcare System, a hospital in Sumter, offered orthopedic surgeon Michael Drakeford a pretty sweet deal—for each outpatient procedure Drakeford referred, the hospital would pay him...
View ArticleForeclosure firms are FDCPA ‘debt collectors’
Law firms retained to pursue foreclosure against homeowners are “debt collectors” subject to the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a federal appeals court ruled in a case involving law...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Columbia attorney elected DRI president
John Cuttino, a partner with Gallivan, White & Boyd in Columbia, has been elected president of the Defense Research Institute, a national membership of defense attorneys and in-house counsel who...
View ArticleState would find privilege substantive law issue
South Carolina’s courts would conclude that the attorney-client privilege is a matter of substantive law—and not procedural law—a federal judge has ruled, on an issue of first impression in the state....
View ArticleAttorney is sanctioned for filing frivolous suit
Charleston labor attorney Nancy Bloodgood has been bench-slapped by the former chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court for filing a frivolous lawsuit against the Berkeley County School...
View ArticleFiring of airline worker not retaliatory
An airline did not retaliate when it terminated a Washington-based employee who took a day of Family and Medical Leave Act leave in the middle of his extended out-of-country vacation, the 4th U.S....
View ArticleAntitrust suit can proceed
A nurse staffing company can move forward with an antitrust suit alleging that a network of South Carolina hospitals orchestrated a wage-fixing scheme. The case appears to mirror litigation in Arizona...
View ArticleClik here to view.
‘Unreasonable’ delay costs plaintiff $34K sanctions award
A tactical decision to wait to seek sanctions has backfired on a plaintiff and its attorneys, costing them a $34,150 sanctions award after the South Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that the delay was...
View ArticleNot in charge: Nurses not supervisors, 4th Circuit says
A South Carolina nursing home must bargain with a union because its nurses are not ineligible supervisors, according to a Nov. 1 opinion by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court’s panel...
View ArticleDifferent standard, same ruling: Lawyer ordered to return $40K in fees
The South Carolina Court of Appeals has filed a substitute opinion in a case involving a Columbia attorney who was ordered to return more than $40,000 in compensation he took for representing a woman’s...
View ArticleThe Case of the Misplaced Comma
Clarifying a misunderstanding that it helped create through prior decisions, the state Supreme Court held Nov. 2 that in considering whether the third element of a prescriptive easement has been met,...
View ArticleMan seeking post-conviction relief gets bail
After spending three years in jail for a fatal crime that he could not remember committing, Randall Nordan has been released – but his freedom could be short-lived. Lexington County Circuit Judge J....
View Article