This case involved a tire retail company suing its supplier, Firestone, for damages from allegedly defective radial tires, asserting claims including breach of warranty, breach of contract, and misrepresentation. The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint after finding undisputed evidence that the plaintiff's principals had submitted approximately 600 forged or falsified tire adjustment forms over three years to obtain improper handling fees and billing credits from Firestone. The core reasoning applied the clean hands doctrine, concluding that the plaintiff's fraudulent conduct in the underlying dealer transactions barred it from obtaining relief, as its presence in court would undermine the integrity of the judicial process.
This case is a pharmaceutical product liability action in which plaintiff Nancy Ryan alleges she developed a pre-cancerous condition due to her mother's prenatal ingestion of DES in 1952-1953 to prevent miscarriage. The complaint named multiple drug manufacturers as defendants and asserted claims including negligence, breach of warranty, strict liability, and conspiracy, but after years of discovery the plaintiff could not identify which company made the specific DES tablets taken by her mother. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on all claims, holding that product liability requires proof of a causal link between the defendant manufacturer and the injurious product, which is the law in both North and South Carolina, and that the plaintiff had failed to produce any admissible evidence creating a genuine issue of material fact on this element.
The case involved a South Carolina resident suing an insurance company in federal court under diversity jurisdiction for breach of a disability insurance contract after the company denied coverage following a stroke and demanded return of an initial payment. The plaintiff alleged both a contract claim for monthly benefits and a tort claim for bad faith refusal to pay. The court dismissed the tort claim, reasoning that South Carolina courts would not recognize a cause of action for tortious breach of the duty of good faith in voluntary disability insurance policies, as opposed to mandatory coverage, and that creating such a new right is a legislative function. With only the contract claim remaining, which sought less than the required jurisdictional amount, the court dismissed the entire action without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.
This case arose from the 1977 murders of two teenagers by three men, one of whom was an off-duty U.S. Army soldier; the father of one victim sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act, alleging that government employees at Fort Jackson negligently failed to provide adequate treatment for the soldier's drug and psychological issues, thereby proximately causing the deaths. The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing among other grounds that the FTCA's exception for claims arising out of assault or battery barred the suit. The court granted the motion and dismissed the action for lack of jurisdiction, holding that the United States has not waived sovereign immunity for tort claims arising out of assault or battery even when the complaint is framed in terms of antecedent negligence by government employees. The court relied on the plain language of 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h) and precedents interpreting the FTCA's exceptions as precluding jurisdiction over such claims.
The case involved claims by two oil companies against a husband and wife alleging a fraudulent scheme in a 1972 transaction in which the plaintiffs transferred an oil lease interest in exchange for stock and other consideration that was never properly delivered, with the defendants allegedly retaining the lease and its profits. The defendants moved for summary judgment on the federal securities claims under Rule 10b-5 and dismissal of the pendent state claims. The court granted the motion, holding that the federal claims were time-barred under the three-year statute of limitations from the South Carolina Blue Sky Law, which the court adopted following Fourth Circuit precedent in O’Hara v. Kovens over its own prior decision, because the facts putting the plaintiffs on inquiry notice were available by 1974. With the federal claims dismissed, the court declined to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims for fraud, breach of contract, and conversion.
The case involved consolidated actions by the United States, through the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, seeking to declare void tax deeds issued by Richland County, South Carolina, on four properties and to confirm federal title and possession. HUD had acquired interests in the properties through mortgage foreclosures after defaults by subsequent purchasers, but the county levied and sold the properties at tax sales for 1970 real estate taxes assessed against an earlier owner without naming the United States as a party. The court ruled the tax deeds null and void, ordered the Secretary's title confirmed where deeds had been obtained, and permitted foreclosure proceedings on the remaining properties. It reasoned that the county's actions violated the Supremacy Clause by attempting to extinguish a federal property interest without complying with the procedures of 28 U.S.C. § 2410, which requires a judicial action naming the United States as a party.
