A ruling by the South Carolina Supreme Court awarded $1.2 million to an upstate couple that was severely injured in a motorcycle accident due to a damaged traffic signal. On Monday June 6, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part the decision from the Spartanburg County Circuit Court.At the culmination of the trial, the jury found in favor of the Boiters and awarded each of them with a total of $1.875 million. However, the SCDOT and the SCDPS filed motions for judgement notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial, and to reduce the verdict amount pursuant to the Tort Claims Act. As a response to this, the Boiters filed a motion challenging the constitutionality of the two-tier cap in the Tort Claims Act and were able to assert that the agencies' negligence constituted two seperate occurances.
The decision from the circuit court denied the agencies' motions for judgement notwithstanding the verdict and a new trial, as well as the Boiters motion challenging the cap's constitutionality. The court found there was only one occurance and granted the agencies' motion to reduce the verdict pursuant to the Tort Claims Act. Their verdict was reduced to $300,00 each, for a total of $600,000.
The Boiter's appealed to the state's high court. In the ruling, the court said that it did find two seperate occurances in the two seperate acts of negligence commited by the SCDOT and the SCDPS. Therefore, the Boiters demonstrated that there were two occurances and were awarded a combined verdict of $1.2 million.
