 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Steinke v. South Carolina Department of Labor9/7/1999
se to an injured plaintiffs claim), aff'd as modified, 333 S.C. 71, 508 S.E.2d 565 (1998). The Court of Appeals decided Davenport I two months before respondents' trial.
The jury awarded Nash's statutory beneficiaries $1 million in actual damages. The Judge reduced the award to $900,000 after the jury, in a special verdict form, determined Nash had assumed the risk of his injuries and was ten percent at fault in the accident.
In South Carolina, the "general rule regarding retroactive application of judicial decisions is that decisions creating new substantive rights have prospective effect only, whereas decisions creating new remedies to vindicate existing rights are applied retrospectively. Prospective application is required when liability is created where formerly none existed." Davenport II, 333 S.C. at 87, 508 S.E.2d 574. In applying our general rule, this Court and the Court of Appeals have made decisions fully retroactive, fully prospective, and selectively prospective.
In Davenport II, we employed the third approach by concluding that the revised view of assumption of the risk applied "to the instant case and to all causes of action that arise or accrue after the date of this opinion. Thus, except for this case, if a cause of action arose or accrued prior to our decision today, it will be governed by the common law form of assumption of risk, if applicable, as it existed under South Carolina case law before this opinion." Davenport II, 333 S.C. at 87, 508 S.E.2d at 574.
We adhere to the prospectivity rule announced in that case. Accordingly, we hold that the trial Judge's instructions drawn from Davenport I improperly allowed the jury to consider Nash's assumption of the risk as part of the comparative negligence analysis. Assumption of the risk constituted a complete bar to recovery when Nash's cause of action accrued in 1993, and the trial Judge erred in applying the new principles retroactively. We reverse the judgment for Nash's statutory beneficiaries and grant them a new trial.
Although the jury determined Nash had assumed ten percent of the risk, the improper instructions undoubtedly affected the jury's deliberations and its answers to questions posed in the special verdict form. Both parties are entitled to a new trial with proper instructions on the law.
4. RE-ENACTMENT OF MONETARY LIMITS
Department contends the trial Judge erred in denying its motion for a new trial nisi remittitur, in which it asked the Judge to reduce the verdicts for the tort of wrongful discharge of an employee in violation of public policy and applying decision in this case and prospectively); Brown v. Anderson County Hospital Ass'n, 268 S.C. 479, 234 S.E.2d 873 (1977) (modifying doctrine of charitable immunity, such that charitable hospitals are liable for heedless and reckless acts, and applying decision in this case and prospectively); McCormick v. England, 328 S.C. 627, 494 S.E.2d 431 (Ct. App. 1997) (first recognizing the common law tort of breach of a physician's duty of confidentiality, and applying decision in this case and prospectively).
Steinke and Nash to $250,000 each under the Tort Claims Act. Department relies on a provision of the 1997 budget act. The provision re-enacted (or more accurately, restated) the then-existing limits on liability found in S.C. Code Ann. ยง 15-78-120 (Supp. 1998), and clarified "any ambiguity in the General Assembly's intent that there remain reasonable limits upon recovery against the government for tort actions." Act No. 155, 1997 Acts 1567. The provision also increased the statutory limits. The higher limits took effect June 1, 1998, and are not at issue in this case.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 South Carolina Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|