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This page is a compilation of recent developments in our firm’s Practice Areas. Updates are presented chronologically below. To sort by Practice Area, select a Practice Area from the menu at left.

Richland County v. Carolina Chloride, Inc., 382 S.C. 634, 677 S.E.2d 892 (Ct. App. 2009).
Opinion No. 4462, decided May 28, 2009.
Practice Areas: Real Estate

The plaintiff acquired and developed a piece of property as a facility for storage and distribution of calcium chloride, a nonhazardous chemical. Prior to and during the plaintiff’s acquisition and development of the property, Richland County representatives repeatedly affirmed that the property’s zoning permitted heavy industrial use. However, when the plaintiff’s president began negotiating the sale of the business, a county representative erroneously advised that the property was zoned rural and that the current use of the property was in violation of the zoning ordinance. As a result, the potential buyers backed out of the deal. The plaintiff brought suit against Richland County, asserting multiple causes of action associated with the unsuccessful sale. The trial court granted a directed verdict to the county, but on appeal, the South Carolina Court of Appeals reversed as to the plaintiff’s negligence claim, holding that the public duty rule does not apply to common law tort claims. The court also found that the Tort Claims Act did not exempt the county from liability.

Jones v. Leagan, 384 S.C. 1, 681 S.E.2d 6 (Ct. App. 2009).
Opinion No. 4551, decided May 27, 2009.
Practice Areas: Real Estate

In 2005, the plaintiff filed an action in ejectment and trespass to try title and sought to quiet title to a parcel of property. The defendants responded that they had acquired title to the property by adverse possession under color of title, and the master-in-equity agreed. On appeal, the South Carolina Court of appeals affirmed, holding that the record—which included evidence that the defendants had improved and maintained the property and paid taxes on the property since 1987—reasonably supported the master’s findings that the defendants had established continuous, hostile, open, actual, notorious, and exclusive possession of the property for a period of at least ten years.

City of Hartsville v. South Carolina Mun. Ins. & Risk Financing Fund, 382 S.C. 535, 677 S.E.2d 574 (2009).
Opinion No. 26625, decided May 18, 2009.
Practice Areas: Insurance Coverage

A landowner sued a city and county for damages arising out of his difficulties and delays in commercially developing a parcel of property. The landowner’s complaint specifically pled causes of action for gross negligence and inverse condemnation. The city, represented by its insurer, moved for summary judgment, which the court granted as to the negligence cause of action but denied as to the inverse condemnation action. The insurer then withdrew its defense of the city on the grounds that the only remaining cause of action, inverse condemnation, was not covered by the city’s liability policy. The city retained its own counsel and was eventually dismissed from the case pursuant to the Tort Claims Act. The city then filed this declaratory judgment action to recover the costs expended to defend against the landowner’s suit after the insurer withdrew its defense. The trial court ruled in favor of the city, finding that the insurer had a continuing duty to defend, and the South Carolina Supreme Court affirmed. The court held that even though the landowner did not specifically plead civil conspiracy, a cause of action covered by the city’s policy, the insurer knew that civil conspiracy was part of the landowner’s theory of recovery. The court also rejected the insurer’s arguments that the civil conspiracy and inverse condemnation claims were inseparable and that it did not have a duty to defend the civil conspiracy claim because such a claim was barred by the Tort Claims Act. The court found that the latter argument confused the insurer’s duty to indemnify with its broader duty to defend.

Jones v. Enterprise Leasing Co.-Southeast, 383 S.C. 259, 678 S.E.2d 819 (Ct. App. 2009).
Opinion No. 4548, decided May 18, 2009.
Practice Areas: Corporate Law, Personal Injury

The plaintiff suffered serious brain damages and incurred medical expenses of approximately $1 million after her vehicle crashed as a result of being struck from behind by a leased vehicle. Through her guardian ad litem, the plaintiff filed this action against the company which leased the vehicle to the negligent driver, as well as its parent company. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants had negligently entrusted the vehicle to an incompetent, reckless, and otherwise unfit driver. The parent company moved for summary judgment, which the trial court granted. On appeal, the South Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed. The court found that the plaintiff could not establish ownership or control, a key element of negligent entrustment, by the parent company because the vehicle was titled in the name of the subsidiary. Moreover, the parent company was not liable as the alter ego of the subsidiary because the subsidiary was viable on its own and the parent company did not exercise the requisite dominance over the subsidiary.

Kelly v. Logan, Jolley, & Smith, L.L.P., 383 S.C. 626, 682 S.E.2d 1 (Ct. App. 2009).
Opinion No. 4547, decided May 18, 2009.
Practice Areas: Legal Malpractice Defense

The plaintiff gave birth to a son who suffered from severe injuries as a result of improper delivery procedures. The plaintiff contacted a Georgia attorney, who then associated South Carolina counsel and filed a medical malpractice action, naming the child’s natural father and the plaintiff, in her capacity as representative of the child, as plaintiffs. The case proceeded on for several years, and eventually the plaintiff was dismissed from the case. Shortly thereafter, the remaining defendants settled and the plaintiff received no funds from the settlement. Nearly three years later, the plaintiff filed this legal malpractice action against the South Carolina attorneys, alleging that they failed to represent her individual interests in the medical malpractice suit. The trial court granted summary judgment to the attorneys on the grounds that the statute of limitations had run, and the South Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed. The court found that there were multiple occasions, all more than three years before the plaintiff filed the legal malpractice case, on which she should have been put on notice that she might have a claim against the attorneys. The court further held that the attorneys were not equitably estopped from asserting the statute of limitations as a defense.

CACI Int’l, Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 566 F.3d 150 (4th Cir. 2009).
Docket No. 08-1885, decided May 14, 2009.
Practice Areas: Insurance Coverage

A federal defense contractor was sued for abuse and torture allegedly perpetrated by its employees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The contractor notified its general liability insurer of the claims, but the insurer declined to provide a defense. The contractor subsequently brought this declaratory judgment action, seeking a judicial determination that the insurer was obligated to defend under the contractor’s general liability policy. The district court granted summary judgment to the insurer, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court acknowledged the breadth of the duty to defend under Virginia law, but found that there was no possibility that the plaintiffs’ claims were covered by the policy because the allegedly tortious activities took place in Iraq, outside the coverage territory of the United States and Canada. The court further held that the “short time” exclusion to the coverage territory limitation did not apply because the plaintiffs alleged a pattern and course of conduct that spanned several years.

Guinan v. Tenet Healthsystems of Hilton Head, Inc., 383 S.C. 48, 677 S.E.2d 32 (Ct. App. 2009).
Opinion No. 4543, decided May 7, 2009.
Practice Areas: Hospital & Medical Malpractice Defense

The plaintiff brought this medical malpractice action against a hospital and several doctors, alleging that the doctors failed to properly diagnose and treat his hematoma. At the conclusion of the discovery period, which was extended multiple times, the trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the plaintiff argued that discovery was incomplete and that his expert’s testimony had established genuine issues of material fact. However, the South Carolina Court of Appeals disagreed and affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment. The court found that the plaintiff had been afforded a full and fair opportunity to conduct discovery and that he had failed to provide expert testimony showing that the defendants had departed from generally accepted standards of care or that any alleged departure had proximately caused the plaintiff’s injuries.

Padgett v. Colleton County, 383 S.C. 431, 679 S.E.2d 533 (Ct. App. 2009).
Opinion No. 4542, decided May 6, 2009.
Practice Areas: Premises Liability

The plaintiff was injured when he slipped and fell in a hole on the grounds of the Colleton County Courthouse. He filed this premises liability suit against the county, but at the close of his case-in-chief, the trial court granted a directed verdict for the county. The trial court found that the dangerous condition which caused the plaintiff’s fall was open and obvious and that the county could not be liable for a landscaper’s failure to erect caution tape around the dangerous area. On appeal, the South Carolina Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the trial judge improperly weighed competing evidence on the issue of whether the dangerous condition was open and obvious and that even if the condition was open and obvious, the jury could have found that the county should have anticipated the harm. The court further held that the jury could have found that the county negligently failed to properly supervise landscaping work performed on the premises.

Arthur Andersen LLP v. Carlisle, 129 S.Ct. 1896 (U.S. 2009).
Docket No. 08-146, decided May 4, 2009.
Practice Areas: Alternative Dispute Resolution

Multiple plaintiffs filed suit against an accounting firm and other others alleging fraud, civil conspiracy, malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence. The defendants demanded arbitration pursuant to a provision in investment agreements between the plaintiffs and one of the defendants and moved to stay the action under § 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The district court denied the motions and the defendants appealed, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dismissed the appeal for want of jurisdiction. However, the United States Supreme Court reversed, finding that the district court’s interlocutory order denying a stay under § 3 of the FAA was immediately appealable. The court held that any litigant who asks for a stay under § 3 is entitled to an immediate appeal from denial of that motion regardless of whether the litigant is in fact eligible for a stay.

Wilkinson v. Palmetto State Transp. Co., 382 S.C. 295, 676 S.E.2d 700 (2009).
Opinion No. 26646, decided May 4, 2009.
Practice Areas: Workers’ Compensation

A long-haul truck driver was killed in an automobile accident while driving his tractor-trailer, and his widow sought workers’ compensation benefits from the trucking company. The trucking company defended on the grounds that the driver was an independent contractor. The Workers’ Compensation Commission, the circuit court, and the South Carolina Court of Appeals applied the four-factor “right to control” test and found that the driver was an employee in light of the South Carolina Supreme Court’s holding in Dawkins v. Jordan, 341 S.C. 434, 534 S.E.2d 700 (2000), that the presence of “any single factor is not merely indicative of, but, in practice, virtually proof of, the employment relation.” However, the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed, finding that the driver was an independent contractor. In the process, the court overruled Dawkins and subsequent cases that had relied on it, holding that the common law “right to control” factors should be evaluated in an evenhanded manner in determining whether the questioned relationship is one of employment or independent contractor.

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Barnes, Alford, Stork & Johnson, LLP makes this information available as a service to its clients and friends. This information is not a solicitation or an effort to provide legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship. The information provided should not be relied upon without consulting a qualified attorney to determine if it is applicable to a specific legal need.