Beaufort Co. couple gets $45K settlement over mistrial caused by sheriff’s deputy
A Beaufort County couple received a $45,000 settlement from their lawsuit against the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office over a deputy who was accused of trying to influence jurors in a civil case and causing a mistrial.
The lawsuit, filed by Charles and Kathleen Holley in September 2018, said that former deputy Royal Wallace Fife “followed and harassed” two jurors in the parking lot outside the county courthouse before “preaching” his views to them during a trial against Ford Motor Co. in February 2017. Fife was fired from the Sheriff’s Office shortly after, a sheriff’s spokesman said.
The Sheriff’s Office settlement, approved Nov. 18, 2020 was recently obtained via Freedom of Information Act request to the S.C Insurance Reserve Fund. Government agencies in South Carolina such as the Sheriff’s Office purchase insurance from the fund, and the fund pays costs and settlements from lawsuits.
The confrontation with jurors happened on the eighth day of trial over a lawsuit brought by the Holleys against Ford Motor Co. Charles Holley alleged that he became sick with cancer during his 30 years working at Ford Motor Co., due to the chemical benzene in the company’s products.
Fife, a 21-year veteran with the Sheriff’s Office, was at the courthouse for an unrelated matter, the Island Packet previously reported, where he is said to have approached two jurors.
The former deputy sought out the jurors and told them that Charles and Kathleen Holley needed to “take personal responsibility for their own actions,” the lawsuit complaint said.
The jurors then told 14th Circuit Judge Carmen Mullen what had occurred, and the judge declared a mistrial, Joel Bailey, the Holleys’ attorney in the Ford case, told the Island Packet in 2017.
“(Fife) definitely was not supposed to communicate with jurors and should have known better,” Bailey said. “(Charles Holley) is pretty devastated right now. Another jury will have to be impaneled. We will have to go through it all over again.”
Months later, the Ford case was re-tried, according to court records, and the new jury ruled in favor of the car company.
The Beaufort County couple sued Fife and the Sheriff’s Office for negligence.
A lawyer for the Sheriff’s Office argued in court that the agency should not be held liable for the actions of an employee “outside the scope of his official duties.”
Jared Newman, an attorney in Port Royal, represented the Holleys in the case against the agency.
He said he was glad to have reached a settlement, though their case was weaker because their main witness — Joel Bailey, the previous attorney — died during litigation.
The deputy’s actions “altered the course of the trial,” said Newman, reached by phone on Sunday. “Ultimately, you don’t know what the first jury might’ve ruled.”
