Ruling in Murdaugh-Mallory Beach trial challenged on fairness, money and legal grounds

For more than three years, disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh and a beer-selling convenience store have been joint defendants in a wrongful death lawsuit alleging both were responsible, in different ways, for the 2019 drowning of Mallory Beach after a drunken boat crash.

Earlier this month, over the Beach family’s objections, a state judge broke up the case and ruled there will be two trials for Beach’s death: one for store owner, Greg Parker, and the other for Murdaugh and other members of his family.

In a court hearing Friday in Hampton County,state Judge Daniel Hall is expected to hear arguments for and against about his decision to create two trials.

Fairness, money and a legal doctrine under which defendants in an alcohol-related death case are jointly tried are the main issues.

In his Sept. 13 ruling severing Parker’s trial from Murdaugh’s, Hall wrote his “extraordinary” action to break up the case was to prevent Parker’s from suffering “embarrassment” and “prejudice” from being associated with Murdaugh.

Murdaugh has been indicted for murdering his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, and he has been accused of “various crimes, including... murder, intentional misconduct, obstruction of justice, computer crimes, money laundering, tampering with the investigation of the very boat crash involved in this action, theft, fraud and extortion,” the judge noted in his ruling.

None of Murdaugh’s alleged crimes have anything to do with the convenience store, the judge wrote.

“If Parker’s is not severed away from the Murdaugh defendants and remains tethered to any of them at trial in the instant case, Parker’s undoubtedly will be prejudiced,” Hall wrote.

The judge agreed with Parker’s attorneys, who in an Aug. 19 motion wrote that having Murdaugh with his notorious reputation as a defendant along with Parker would “prejudice” a Hampton County jury.

“The jury pool in Hampton County will be inherently aware of the Murdaugh name and the media frenzy that surrounds it; no jury can be impaneled that will understand a delineation between the Murdaugh defendants and Parker’s if both are abutted to each other in the case caption and at trial,” Parker’s lawyers argued.

Parker’s attorneys are S.C. House Speaker Murrell Smith, Pankaj Shere of Raleigh, Sharonda Barnes of Atlanta, and David Williford and Mitch Appleby, both of Greenville.

In reply, attorney Mark Tinsley, who represents Mallory Beach’s mother, Renee Beach, wrote that Parker’s motion to separate the cases demonstrates his “callous indifference to the suffering of the Beach family... by attempting to burden them with two trials in which they will be forced to endure and relive the horrific events of their daughter’s death and the unbearable recounting of the week-long search for her body. No family should have to deal with such despicable acts in seeking justice for the death of their daughter.”

Moreover, the ruling to split the case into two goes against a well-established South Carolina legal doctrine called “joint and several liability,” which specifically applies to lawsuits where the sale of alcohol and intoxication and a death or injury is involved, Tinsley wrote in a Aug. 30 memorandum opposing the judge’s decision.

In such cases, the defendants are all liable for the entire amount of a jury verdict — meaning for example, if a jury awards $1 million to an injured party in a case with two defendants, if one defendant cannot pay, the other is liable for the entire amount.

“If two separate trials take place and result in one verdict against Parker’s and one against the remaining defendants, how will the court enforce the law of joint and several liability? The answer is clear. It cannot be done,” Tinsley wrote, adding that Parker’s motion illustrates how desperate Parker’s is “to escape its fear of the application of joint and several liability in this case.”

Moreover, it is the plaintiff who decides who to sue, and a judge cannot divide a case with multiple defendants up into multiple cases, Tinsley wrote.

In an amicus brief filed Monday in support of Tinsley, attorney Joe McCulloch noted that Parker’s has “vast and extensive wealth” while Murdaugh — who has been disbarred and is in jail — has little or no assets.

McCulloch represents Connor Cook, a passenger in the boat crash that resulted in Mallory Beach’s death. Cook is suing Parker’s, Alex Murdaugh and his son, Buster.

Allegations in the case say that on Feb. 23, Paul Murdaugh — Alex’s late son, whom he is now accused of killing — brought a load of beer at one of Parker’s convenience stores. Paul, 19, was underage and he used an identification card belonging to his older brother, Buster.

From there Paul and his five friends used a boat to go to an island, where they began drinking. Later that night, they boated to downtown Beaufort, where Paul had more alcohol at a bar. Shortly afterward, the boat — allegedly driven by an intoxicated Paul — crashed into a bridge piling in a waterway near Parris Island.

Parker’s is a defendant because, according to allegations, the clerk that sold Paul the beer should have noticed he was not the person in the ID Paul used. Alex Murdaugh is a defendant because he allegedly allowed Paul to use Buster’s ID. Buster Murdaugh is a defendant because he allegedly let Paul use his ID.

Another defendant, the Beaufort bar that sold Paul alcohol, settled the case with Beach’s family.