Labor & Employment – Right to a Jury Trial – Breach of Contract Claim Against the Government

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Respondent was not entitled to a jury trial on her breach of contract claim against Richland County.

We reversed and remanded.

Richland County appealed a circuit court order granting Respondent Alicia Pearson a jury trial on her breach of contract claim. The County argued Pearson was not entitled to a jury trial because a breach of contract claim against the government was not recognized in 1868 when the adoption of our state constitution enshrined the right to a jury trial.

Pearson began working for the County as an accountant in January of 2017. She alleged she was unfairly criticized, and her competency was questioned in front of her co-workers in retaliation for filing a grievance regarding a racially offensive comment made by the County Transportation Director. Pearson also alleged she was “functionally demoted” in the form of changes in responsibility and supervision after bringing to light instances in which she was directed to process certain requests she claimed were incomplete and went against policy. Pearson alleged breach of contract, promissory estoppel, and whistleblower retaliation and requested a jury trial. Pearson argued the County breached her employment contract, specifically the retaliation policy in its employee handbook, when she was “the victim of retaliation and demotion.” The County filed a motion to transfer to a non-jury docket and a motion for summary judgment. Relying on Unisys Corp. v. South Carolina Budget & Control Board Division of General Services Information Technology Management Office, the County argued Pearson was not entitled to a jury trial because there was no constitutional right to a jury trial for a breach of contract claim against a sovereign at the time the constitution was adopted, and therefore, no such right exists now.

The circuit court found Pearson was entitled to a jury trial for the breach of contract claim; however, it denied her requests for a jury trial on her promissory estoppel and whistleblower claims. Regarding its refusal to transfer Pearson’s breach of contract claim to the non-jury docket, the court stated the County was not entitled to sovereign immunity because our supreme court had abolished the State’s total sovereign immunity. The circuit court further reasoned that based on case law, when the State “consents to a contract, it consents to suit on that contract.” In applying this reasoning to the case, the circuit court explained the County consented to be sued when it contracted with Pearson to secure her employment. The circuit court also found that the County provided Pearson with a handbook containing policies that created a contractual relationship between the two.

On appeal, the County contended the circuit court erred in finding Pearson was entitled to a jury trial on her breach of contract claim against the County. We agreed. Article I, section 14 of the South Carolina Constitution “secures the right to a jury trial only in cases in which that right existed at the time of the adoption of the constitution in 1868.” Unisys, 346 S.C. at 172, 551 S.E.2d at 271.

Pearson relied heavily on Kinsey Construction Co. v. South Carolina Department of Mental Health, 272 S.C. 168, 170, 249 S.E.2d 900, 902 (1978), in which the supreme court considered whether the State could be sued on a contract for the construction of an alcohol and drug addiction center in Richland County pursuant to a statute giving the Department of Mental Health all of the powers incident to corporations. The court found “that whenever the State of South Carolina pursuant to statutory authority enters into a valid contract, the State implicitly consents to be sued and waives its sovereign immunity to the extent of its contractual obligations.” Kinsey certainly signaled the law was moving toward an expansion of the right to sue the State in contract. However, we concluded Pearson’s reliance on Kinsey is misplaced. Even if we assume the implicit consent discussed in Kinsey retroactively applied to 1868, the facts in this case are not analogous, and the legal theory for the existence of Pearson’s contract—promises contained in an employment handbook—is not based on any statutory authority which Kinsey recognizes as a necessary basis to infer the State’s consent to be sued. Furthermore, this legal theory was not recognized in our state until the 1980s. Based on the rule set forth in Unisys, we concluded Pearson was not entitled to a jury trial on her breach of contract claim against the County.

Reversed and remanded.

Pearson v. Richland County (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 011-062-25, 5 pp.) (Aphrodite K. Konduros, J.) Appealed from Richland County Circuit Court (L. Casey Manning, J.) Andrew F. Lindemann, of Lindemann Law Firm, P.A., of Columbia, for Appellant; Donald Gist, of Gist Law Firm, PA and Erica Katherine McCrea, of Merritt, Webb, Wilson & Caruso, PLLC, both of Columbia, for Respondent. South Carolina Court of Appeals