S.C. Supreme Court strikes statute requiring engineering experts to have a SC license

In Baggerly v. CSX Transportation, the Supreme Court reversed a grant of a directed verdict for CSX. In this case, a train engineer was injured when his train derailed after a street sweeper had jumped the curb and collided with the railroad track. Although the sweeper operator was negligent, the court held that there was enough evidence to show that the negligence of the sweeper operator, combined with CSX's negligence regarding insufficient ballast on the roadbed, to bring about the derailment.

Also important in this opinion is the court's decision regarding an out-of-state expert in engineering who was excluded by the trial court under Pursuant to South Carolina Code Section 40-22-30, because the expert was not a South Carolina licensed professional engineer. This Code section provides:

Practice of engineering means any service or creative work, the adequate performance of which requires engineering education, training, and experience in the application of special knowledge of the mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences to such services or creative work as consultation, investigation, expert technical testimony....

The Supreme Court held that exclusion of the expert would clearly contravene SCRE 702: "Without clear indication from the Legislature that the 2000 amendment was, in fact, intended specifically to limit Rule 702 in this way, we decline to adopt that interpretation."

Of course, there is not doubt that the legislature intended to prohibit out-of-state engineers from offering expert testimony in our courts. The legislature did the same thing with medical experts, but earlier this week the Supreme Court suspended the legislature's effort at redefining the practice of medicine when there was no actual case or controversyy before it.