South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

The imprisonment of South Carolinians found in contempt for failure to pay child support was front and center when the U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Turner v. Rogers on June 20. In that case, the high court reversed a jail sentence entered against Michael Turner because the procedures at his civil contempt hearing violated his due process rights. Now the S.C. Supreme Court has entered the fray, reversing a child support-related criminal contempt penalty because Brian DiMarco (pictured) was entitled to a jury trial before Greenville County Family Court Judge Barry W. Knobel sentenced him to 12 months in prison.

Tagged with: Child Support Due Process

CHARLESTON (AP) — Carnival Cruise Lines has asked a state judge to toss out a lawsuit challenging its South Carolina cruise operations, saying the Charleston waterfront has been used for passenger ships far longer than city zoning rules have been in place. “Union Pier has been used as a passenger terminal since the beginning of the last century, whereas the provisions of the zoning ordinance relied upon by the plaintiffs in this case were enacted in 1996 or thereafter,” attorneys for the company wrote in a motion filed last week.

A pair of Camden attorneys recently won millions in a personal injury case after rejecting a low ball settlement offer and overcoming a lack of medical evidence to prove the cause of their client’s life-altering disability. William S. Tetterton of the Tetterton Law Firm and co-counsel Vincent A. Sheheen, a partner at Savage, Royall & Sheheen, represented a father of two who began having debilitating muscle spasms after inhaling a toxic chemical that was sprayed into the small cab of a crane he was operating. The crane operator, Terry Geddings, and his wife, Candace, sued contractor D&L Inc., alleging that two of its employees had acted recklessly when they sprayed six to a dozen bottles of a product called Blast-A-Coil into the crane’s air conditioning unit while Geddings was still inside.

Tagged with: Personal Injury

A recent S.C. Supreme Court decision has gutted the remedy of equitable subrogation for lenders in South Carolina, and also possibly opened the door to claims brought by borrowers seeking to void mortgages entered into without the oversight of attorneys. Greenville attorney Earle Prevost (pictured), who represented Matrix Financial Corp. in Matrix Financial Services Corp. v. Frazer, said the high court’s decision “will have a large effect, particularly in the area of litigation. Now everyone who didn’t have a lawyer present when they took out their mortgage will seek to set it aside or void it.”

His name is Deaver, Jeffery Deaver and he is, for now, also Bond, James Bond. Deaver, a corporate lawyer-turned master of the crime thriller, is also the author of the latest novel in the James Bond 007 series, “Carte Blanche.” His Bond is an updated version of the spy create by Ian Flaming in 1953. The latest Bond is still in his 30s, but now he's a veteran of the Afghanistan war and equipped with a smart phone that gives new meaning to killer apps. It's appropriate that Deaver stepped away from his 27 crime novels to do a turn at espionage because he is a bit undercover in real life, too. Despite his bestselling books that include one that became the movie, “The Bone Collector,” his is rarely recognized in his adopted home of Chapel Hill, NC.

When Casey Anthony (pictured in this AP Photo by Red Huber, Pool) was unanimously acquitted in July, a USA Today/Gallup poll showed that nearly two out of three Americans believed she was guilty of murder. How could the court of public opinion differ so drastically from the jury in an Orlando courtroom? Every parent has experienced that moment of panic in a store or park when you can’t find your child. Those moments can seem like hours, and when your child is found, an unbelievable wave of relief washes over you.

Ridgeland, a Lowcountry community of about 2,500 close to the Georgia border, is known for four nearby plantations, a nature trail and a speed trap along seven miles of Interstate 95. The plantations, historic reminders of agricultural riches that were sustained by slavery, and the nature trail are still there to draw tourists. The photographic traffic enforcement system, a term town officials prefer to speed trap, is now gone.

Two years of political back-and-forth ended when Gov. Nikki Haley signed a new law that caps punitive damages, making South Carolina the last state in the Southeast to a pass tort reform measure. The Fairness in Civil Justice Act of 2011 was signed July 26 and takes effect Jan. 1. The new civil litigation law is built on two tiers of liability caps. The first limits damages to $500,000 or three times the compensatory damages awarded, whichever is greater, while the second tier raises the cap to $2 million or four times the compensatory damages.

Tagged with: Tort Reform

Few would guess that Andy Savage, the top gun criminal defense attorney in Charleston, would be rattled by a camera. But when he began appearing on the local TV news as a legal commentator in the early ‘90s he was a perspiring bundle of nerves. “My hands, they sweated so much that when I’d leave the desk I’d leave a little puddle of sweat behind,” he says. “I was very uncomfortable.” Savage would towel off and try to control the anxiety. He kept returning to the studio, and as he gained on-camera experience he became more comfortable with TV work. By the spring of 2009, he was ready to launch his own news show.

Cory Credell’s insistence that counsel in his Orangeburg murder trial in 2001 had been ineffective fell on deaf ears in the South Carolina state appellate courts. The South Carolina Court of Appeals dismissed his appeal in 2003. Credell’s application for post-conviction relief was denied in 2006. Credell then filed a petition for Writ of Certiorari with the South Carolina Supreme Court. The court granted the writ in 2008 but later dismissed it in 2009 as improvidently granted.

Tagged with: New Trial Writ of Certiorari