A solution for SC venues' liquor liability woes stalled. Can it happen this summer? (2024)

TAYLORS — When attempts to bring relief to restaurants and bars struggling with high liquor liability insurance rates died in the Senate last month, owners took a sober look at the road ahead.

Someclosed their doors, while others are making a last-ditch, improbable attempt to have lawmakers reconvene this summer instead of holding out until their typical return in January.

The plan relies on amending what's called the legislature's sine die resolution— a document that lays out an agenda for a summer term— to include the South Carolina Justice Act.

The act would change the state's current "joint and several liability" law, which leaves people liable for all damages in a lawsuit, even if they are only partially at fault.

On May 29, 30 or so bar and restaurant owners and lawmakers gathered at a press conference at Taylors Mill to push for the summer session.

Amending the sine die to address the issue is both difficult and unusual.

It requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers, meaning a strong coalition of Democrats and Republicans working together. The last time the document was amended was in 2015, when S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley pushed forthe removal of the Confederate flagfrom the Statehouse grounds.

Gov. Henry McMaster has already hinted for lawmakers to amend the sine die to reconsider ahealth department restructuring bill, which had overwhelming support but failed in the closing minutes of the session.

Current liquor liability law in the state means that in alcohol-related personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits even businesses found to be only 1 percent responsible for an incident have to pay the entire verdict.

Business owners have said the liability law coupled with a requirement that every establishment serving alcohol after 5 p.m. must carry a $1 million liquor liability policy has pushed dozens of insurance providers out of South Carolina.

Those companies remaining have raised rates so high that many bars and small music venues have closed.

While the politics runs its course, business owners continue to face a tough call: wait for relief or throw in the towel.

Omar Naji has been part of Greenville’s food and beverage community for 25 years, and this year was the first that he thought he might have to close because of insurance costs.

In November, Naji, who owns the Blu nightclub and the Hall of Fame sports bar, waited anxiously for his liquor liability insurance quote to come through.

The amount for Blu shocked him, but he paid it immediately, before he said they could change the price.

"I’m waiting for that one year they say 'well, unless you pay $150,000 you have no insurance,'" Naji said at the press conference. "That would kill that business."

The S.C. Justice Act passed through the House this April but went nowhere in the Senate after a contingent of 23 senators effectively killed the bill.

Critics of the bill argued it would hurt victims by making it more difficult for them to be made whole and would not address insurance companies’ role in exacerbating the issue.

Whether lawmakers have come around since April is unclear.

State Rep. Jason Elliott, R-Greenville, told The Post and Courier there is a sense of urgency among the community in all areas of the state, but that has to translate to pressuring their lawmakers to focus on lawsuit reform.

Speaking alongside Upstate bar owners in a press conference May 29, S.C. Freedom Caucus members put the blame on lawyer-legislators in Columbia.

"Fixing the joint and several liability problem will cost the state nothing," said State Rep. Jay Kilmartin, R-Lexington. "However, it will cost some of the plaintiff attorneys who are legislators at the Statehouse."

More than a quarter of House members and nearly half of senators are attorneys, The Post and Courierreported in 2023. Concerns have been raised before about conflicts of interest between lawmakers who are attorneys arguing cases before judges they elect, for example.

"Lawyers have a vested interest in keeping things the way they are," State Rep. Adam Morgan told The Post and Courier.

Reporters Lillia Callum-Penso in Greenville and Nick Reynolds in Columbia contributed.