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by DIANE HARDY
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It’s a wrap! The 2025 South Carolina legislative session is officially over, and it has been one long and crazy ride trying to get tort/lawsuit reform accomplished in the Palmetto State! The bill that passed is confusing, but the Mom and Pop Alliance of SC will take a stab at explaining it for all of us non-lawyers.
A brand-new House bill (H. 3430) is the one that made it through both chambers – and will be headed to the governor’s desk for signature. For a little background, earlier in the session the House passed H. 3497, in our opinion a relatively weak bill that dealt only with liquor liability. The Senate passed a stronger, more comprehensive bill (S. 244) which, in addition to liquor liability, offered protections for all types of businesses (read more here).
Opponents said the Senate bill was too comprehensive, but from a small business perspective we very much wanted to see Senate bill S. 244 make it through!
What we ended up with was not as strong as we would like, but it is a definite improvement over current law, and it could bring down insurance rates. It appears H .3430 was rushed; in fact, it looks like they inserted the new liquor liability language into a previous bill dealing with the auditor. It’s a legislative process known as “strike and replace,” or “strike and insert.” This is a way of avoiding the committee process to get a bill passed very quickly.
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As an aside, while legal, we have issues with its use, given that it was the mechanism used in the past to get the $1.3 billion incentive package for Volkswagen/Scout through both chambers in a matter of days.
As the main issue driving skyrocketing liquor liability insurance rates in South Carolina is our unchecked liability laws, H. 3430 helps provide some new safeguards. While it falls way short of the true proportional liability we wanted to see (each party only liable according to their degree of fault), the bill that passed both chambers does offer some tangible improvements over current law.
It helps address claim severity, one of the key components needed to help lower insurance premiums for venues. The issue of being 1% at fault and paying 100% of the award (which was unique to liquor liability) will end. Now you must be at least 50% at fault to pay 100% of the liability (as is the case for other industries in South Carolina). Also, theoretically under this new law, those who are under 50% responsible could pay up to 50% of the damages even if they are only 1% responsible. Again, this is not true proportional liability – but it is much better than the current law, from our perspective.
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Other helpful aspects of the bill include:
- The apportionment of fault is no longer limited to named defendants, meaning cases now can include all at-fault parties, but there are some significant exceptions to this.
- Guarantees that if there is a DUI driver, they must be on the verdict form. This is huge because they would likely be over 50% responsible for the fault.
- The standard for guilt was raised; a venue must “knowingly” sell to an intoxicated person.
- The Senate bill (S. 244) that was sent to the House (which they chose not to go with) lowered the mandatory minimums of liability insurance bars/restaurants need to carry from $1 million to $500,000, which we strongly supported. This bill does not do that, but with mandatory server training and meeting other criteria, venues can lower their maximums.
- The coverage limits for non-profits was lowered to $500,000 in aggregate with a $250,000 per-occurrence limit.
- Among other things, this bill allows the formation of captive insurance companies, like a co-op, for example, where parties can pool resources and form their own insurance coverage if standards are met.
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The Mom and Pop Alliance of SC (along with MANY other groups and individuals) have been pushing for lawsuit reform in the Palmetto State for literally years, so we are happy to see something get across the finish line!
Of course, we wish it were closer to true proportional liability, and expanded beyond liquor liability to provide protections to all types of businesses. Lastly, we were disappointed to see that it will not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2026! Given the urgency of this issue and the years of advocacy work to get a bill passed, it is difficult to wait another seven months to see any results. But hey, at this point we are just grateful to FINALLY have results!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Diane Hardy is a former nurse anesthetist turned entrepreneur, who (along with her business partner) recently opened her second franchise bakery in Greenville. She is the Executive Director of the Mom and Pop Alliance of SC, which she founded during Covid upon discovering South Carolina’s over 400,000 small businesses had little representation in our State House. The Alliance provides education, communication, and advocacy for SC’s family-owned businesses. Her passion for South Carolina’s small business is strong, and as such she donates her time to the organization, accepting no salary or government funding. Her love for our state isn’t new. Before launching the Mom and Pop Alliance she was the founder and host of The Palmetto Panel (2014-2019), an annual statewide conference highlighting issues impacting South Carolina. Diane has a bachelor’s degree in nursing and psychology from Michigan State as well as a master’s degree from MUSC.
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