The South Carolina Supreme Court reversed a circuit court order that had certified two classes of inmates allegedly sexually assaulted in state custody, ruling July 22, 2026, that the case cannot satisfy the commonality requirement for a class action. The unanimous court remanded the case for discovery and trial of only the four named plaintiffs' individual claims.
Justice John Few, writing for the court, held that whatever common question the plaintiffs identified was "overwhelmed by the numerous individual questions the jury and the trial court must litigate." The decision decertifies classes that plaintiffs' counsel had estimated could include tens of thousands of inmates held by the South Carolina Department of Corrections and the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice.
The suit was brought by inmates Calvin Henson, Daniel James Collins, Jason Robinson, and Russell Taylor, who alleged prison officials were negligent in failing to adopt and enforce adequate policies and to provide sufficient staff, and that proper policies and staffing "would have prevented the sexual assaults" they say they suffered. Dorchester County Circuit Court Judge Heath P. Taylor certified two classes covering all individuals under SCDC or SCDJJ custody "from 2012 until present" who were victims of a nonconsensual sexual battery.
The central legal question was whether that negligence claim could be resolved for the entire class in a single proceeding, or whether it dissolves into thousands of separate cases. Rule 23(a)(2) of the South Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure requires "questions of law or fact common to the class," a requirement courts call commonality. The court explained that a class plaintiff must show that common questions are of such critical importance that class-wide answers overshadow the need to try individualized questions.
Few's opinion walked through how the case would actually be tried. Because the class includes only inmates who were raped, the court reasoned, a jury would first have to make an individual factual finding of class membership for each potential member, an inquiry the agencies are entitled to contest with their own evidence before a jury. Using the circuit court's stated minimum of 1,768 reported sexual assaults between 2012 and 2022, the court said the trial would require at least 1,768 separate findings on whether each inmate was raped, a task that "would, to put it mildly, overwhelm the court."
The court also questioned whether negligence itself is truly common across the class. Standards for prison management changed repeatedly over the covered period, the opinion noted, pointing to shifting requirements under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act and South Carolina's varying responses, which ranged from no reporting before 2014 to assurances of future compliance and later emergency assurances. A jury could find an agency negligent as to a 2012 assault but not negligent as to a later one, the court observed, meaning the answer to the negligence question may not be the same for all class members.
Proximate cause and damages, the court added, plainly require individual findings. Because compliance with prison standards would not prevent all sexual misconduct, plaintiffs would have to prove for each inmate that the assault would not have occurred but for the agencies' conduct. The court also noted that class counsel owes a fiduciary duty to every potential member, including the 66,800 inmates plaintiffs suggested the classes might reach, making it difficult to pare the case down even to the 1,768 minimum.
Applying what it called the rigorous analysis required by the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes and Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo and by its own precedent, the court concluded the plaintiffs could not meet the Rule 23(a) standard. The court quoted Dukes for the proposition that commonality requires "the capacity of a class-wide proceeding to generate common answers apt to drive the resolution of the litigation."
The opinion also resolved a recurring procedural question, holding that an interlocutory order granting or denying class certification is never immediately appealable to the court of appeals. "There are no exceptions," Few wrote, adding that the court would exercise its rare authority to issue a common-law writ of certiorari to review such orders only in exceptional circumstances. The court cautioned litigants dissatisfied with a certification ruling not to lightly seek that route.
Addressing the long-debated question of whether South Carolina requires predominance, the court said its rules have always demanded a qualitative balance between common and individual issues. It embraced the inherent predominance requirement described by the reporters who drafted the state rules and, to the extent a 1999 decision, Littlefield v. South Carolina Forestry Commission, endorsed a more expansive view, overruled it in part.
Chief Justice Kittredge and Justices James, Hill, and Verdin concurred. The case now returns to the circuit court, where the four named plaintiffs may pursue their negligence claims individually rather than on behalf of the broad classes the trial court had approved.