Personal responsibility and product liability collided in a South Carolina Supreme Court opinion that bars automakers from raising the defense of comparative negligence in crashworthiness suits. The state’s highest court held on May 17 that General Motors could not use ...

Tagged with: comparative negligence defense

Singleton v. Cuthbert (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-064-16, 5 pp.) (Stephanie McDonald, J.) (Paul Short Jr., J., dissenting) Appealed from Beaufort County Circuit Court (J. Ernest Kinard Jr., J.) S.C. App. Holding: Where plaintiff was in the second car behind a ...

Tagged with: comparative negligence school bus

Jenkins v. United States (Lawyers Weekly No. 002-001-15, 7 pp.) (David Norton, J.) 2:12-cv-01346; D.S.C. Holding: Even if the court were to assume that a mail carrier was somehow negligent (perhaps in pulling slightly off to the right side of ...

Tagged with: comparative negligence FTCA

A homeowner who has workers performing maintenance on her home allegedly refuses to turn off her automatic sprinkler system despite workers' requests. Later, a worker slips on a wet ladder and falls. He sues, claiming the homeowner was reckless, and the homeowner asserts the worker was negligent. In a real-life suit from Florence County, that scenario raised a novel question under South Carolina's comparative negligence system: Could a jury compare and offset the plaintiff's alleged ordinary negligence against the defendant's alleged recklessness? It could indeed, the state Supreme Court said in an April 4 first-impression decision. Edward L. Graham (pictured), a lawyer for the worker, hailed the decision.

Tagged with: comparative negligence First Impression Tort/Negligence

Berberich v. Jack. Under South Carolina's comparative negligence system, all forms of conduct amounting to negligence in any form, including, but not limited to, ordinary negligence, gross . . .

Tagged with: comparative negligence First Impression Florence County Jury Instructions Tort/Negligence

An Upstate teen who emerged unhurt from a single-vehicle wreck only to suffer electrocution when he touched a downed power line has won a $4.4 million verdict against Duke Power Co. in a negligence suit. A Greenville County jury awarded actual damages to plaintiff Xavier Massey on March 11 in Massey v. Duke Power Co., civil action No. 2009-CP-23-7220. Judge Robin Stilwell pre-sided in the Greenville County Court of Common Pleas. Massey's lawyers said a key factor in winning the verdict was countering a corporate policy under which Duke claimed evidence from the scene wasn't subject to disclosure.

Tagged with: comparative negligence Negligence Personal Injury