The case involved a challenge to a municipal ordinance in Greenwood that prohibited construction of any buildings within 200 feet of railroad crossings without city council approval, which Mrs. Henderson argued violated her due process rights by preventing use of her property. The court ruled the ordinance unconstitutional under the state constitution's due process clause and ordered the city to issue a building permit via mandamus. The reasoning centered on the ordinance's unreasonableness, as it granted absolute discretionary control over property use, effectively rendering it unproductive, exceeding the scope of police power delegated to municipalities, and the court affirmed its authority to assess the reasonableness of such ordinances as a test of constitutionality.
This case concerned the Southern Railway Company's lawsuit to remove a permanent building from its claimed right of way near Greenville, South Carolina, based on an unrecorded 1845 deed from prior owners. The defendant, who bought the property years after the building's construction without actual notice of the full right-of-way claim, defended on grounds of equitable estoppel due to the railroad's long acquiescence, failure to object despite visibility of the structure, and allowance of other encroachments. A jury found for the defendant, and the court affirmed, applying principles that estoppel prevents assertion of rights when one party's conduct has enabled the other's reliance and potential loss. The core reasoning centered on notice from the charter and deed, balanced against the defendant's tortious erection of a permanent structure without prior inquiry.
The case concerned a dispute over the amounts, ranking, and priority of multiple mortgages in a proceeding involving Farmers' & Merchants' National Bank and Moore. A referee issued a report setting forth those determinations, to which no exceptions were filed. The circuit judge adopted the referee's report as the judgment of the court. In this dissenting opinion, Chief Justice Gary, joined by Justice Watts, concluded that the circuit court's order should be affirmed on the basis of the reasons stated in the referee's report and the adopting order.
The case Cothran v. Meiklejohn came before the court as an appeal from an order issued by the circuit judge. The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's order based on the reasons stated therein and dismissed the appeal. Chief Justice Gary delivered the opinion, with Justices Watts and Stabler concurring in the result.
The case concerned whether a petition for rehearing could be entertained after the South Carolina Supreme Court sitting en banc had issued its opinion, based on the claim that such a decision was not final. The court held that the petition must be dismissed, as the state constitution's provision making en banc decisions 'final and conclusive' bars rehearing requests that merely reargue the same issues. Drawing on the history of the state's dual court system and prior precedents interpreting identical language, the court reasoned that allowing such petitions would permit endless litigation by either party and undermine the constitutional mandate of finality. The opinion noted that a rule of court delaying remand for ten days did not conflict with this finality requirement, and that only new or different questions might warrant different treatment.
The case involved a defendant convicted in mayor's court on three separate counts of violating City of Union ordinances by possessing, transporting, and selling the same bottle of contraband whisky, resulting in cumulative sentences of $300 or 90 days. The circuit judge reduced the sentence to a single $100 fine or 30 days on the ground that the mayor lacked authority to impose multiple penalties for what amounted to one offense. In this dissenting opinion, the court reasoned that the acts formed parts of a single transaction involving one bottle of whisky, making the defendant subject to only one penalty, as separate prosecutions would violate principles of former jeopardy.
