Court Opinion

ID: 9590009
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:50:53.071434+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:58.175177
License: Public Domain

STILWELL, Judge
(concurring in dissent in separate opinion):
I concur with the result reached by Judge Goolsby and join in the dissent. For the reasons outlined by Judge Goolsby, I believe our state’s adoption of comparative negligence did not *522eliminate assumption of the risk as a complete bar to a negligence action.
I write separately to emphasize my firmly held belief that, notwithstanding the trends of other jurisdictions or the argument of the majority that elimination of assumption of the risk would be consistent with the purpose behind South Carolina’s adoption of comparative negligence, this court is bound to follow the decisions of the South Carolina Supreme Court. S.C. Const. art. V., sec. 9 (“The decisions of the Supreme Court shall bind the Court of Appeals as precedents.”); Langley v. Boyter, 286 S.C. 85, 87, 332 S.E.2d 100, 101 (1985) (reversing this court’s adoption of comparative negligence and holding, “That issue must await the permission of [the supreme court] before a change in this basic, well-established law is brought about, unless the Legislature acts on the matter beforehand.”); State v. Watts, 320 S.C. 377, 465 S.E.2d 359 (Ct.App.1995) (declining to follow the most recent interpretation of the United States Constitution by the United States Supreme Court, the Supremacy Clause notwithstanding, where the interpretation was in conflict with the most recent South Carolina Supreme Court precedent).
Because I view the majority opinion as conflicting with well-established South Carolina Supreme Court precedent recognizing the doctrine of assumption of the risk as a complete bar to a negligence recovery, I would affirm.