Opinion ID: 1410124
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: equal protection/due process

Text: The Snavelys next assert that § 15-3-640 violates equal protection and due process. We disagree. In Broome v. Truluck , [5] we found the prior § 15-3-640 violative of equal protection. It granted architects, engineers and contractors immunity ten years after substantial completion of an improvement, while denying such protection to owners or manufacturers of component parts. We stated: While the General Assembly has the power in passing legislation to make a classification of its citizens, the constitutional guaranty of equal protection of the law requires that all members of a class be treated alike under similar circumstances and conditions, and that any classification cannot be arbitrary but must bear a reasonable relation to the legislative purpose sought to be effected. 270 S.C. at 230, 241 S.E.2d at 740. (Citation omitted.) In Broome , we found nothing in the statute which justified the distinction between architects, engineers, and contractors, on the one hand, and owners and manufacturers, on the other. Subsequent to Broome , the legislature revised § 15-3-640 by Act No. 412 of 1986. The revision increases the period of liability from ten years to thirteen years and extends immunity to current or prior owners and manufacturers. See S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-640(8), (9). A following section, 15-3-670, provides, in part: The limitation provided in §§ 15-3-640 through 15-3-660 may not be asserted as a defense by any person in actual possession or control , as owner, tenant, or otherwise, of the improvement at the time the defective or unsafe condition constitutes the proximate cause of the injury or death for which it is proposed to bring an action, in the event such person in actual possession or control knows, or reasonably should have known, of the defective or unsafe condition . (Emphasis supplied.) The rationale for distinguishing current possessors from architects, engineers, manufacturers, etc., was set forth in the preamble to Act No. 412 of 1986: