Tort/Negligence – Landlord/Tenant – Roof Damage – Repair Process – Direct vs. Vicarious Liability

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After a hurricane damaged the roof of a rental house, the defendant-landlord hired a contractor to repair the roof. The contractor moved decorative railroad ties to improve access, and the plaintiff-tenant’s late wife tripped over one of the moved ties and suffered injuries from her fall (she later died of unrelated causes). Where plaintiff stipulated that he was proceeding only on a theory of the landlord’s direct liability, the trial court did not err in declining to instruct the jury on a theory of the landlord’s vicarious liability for the manner in which its contractor conducted its repairs.

We affirm the circuit court’s rulings in a trial that resulted in a defense verdict.

Despite counsel’s varying uses of the terms “medical bill” and “medical records,” since plaintiff’s decedent’s medical bill and her medical records were both admitted into evidence via plaintiff’s Exhibit 2, defense counsel could use the medical records’ notations that decedent was admitted to the hospital at 12:50 p.m. to cross-examine plaintiff after he testified that he took her to the hospital at 6:30 a.m.

Byerly v. Wesley (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-035-23, 9 pp.) (Per Curiam) Appealed from Horry County Circuit Court (Markley Dennis, J.) Joseph Clay Hopkins for appellant; Stephanie Anthony for respondent. South Carolina Court of Appeals (unpublished)