Karrie Gurwood & Howard Gurwood v. GCA Services Group, Inc.

Syllabus

This is a plaintiffs' appeal from a plaintiff's verdict for actual damages in a slip-and-fall case. The court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial on all issues because it found the trial court erred in directing a verdict for the defendant on punitive damages. The court of appeals found it unnecessary to reach the other six grounds for the appeal. We affirm the court of appeals on the punitive damages question, but we find the plaintiff is not entitled to a new trial on all issues simply because the trial court erred as to punitive damages. We remand to the court of appeals to consider the other grounds for appeal. The nature of the eventual remand to the trial court will depend on how the court of appeals handles those issues. If the court of appeals finds no error as to all of the other five grounds, then subsection 15-32-520(A) of the South Carolina Code will come into play. Under that subsection, the defendant may \request\ a bifurcated trial \before the same jury.\ If the defendant makes such a request, only then will the circuit court conduct a retrial on all issues. If the defendant does not make the subsection 15-32-520(A) request, the retrial will be on punitive damages only.