Background
Gregg Roman and Gravitas Synergy Solutions, LLC were nonparties in litigation arising from the Mallory Beach dram-shop case. The plaintiffs in that underlying action alleged that defendants had hired consultants and investigators to shape public perception and discourage the plaintiffs from pursuing their claims. Roman was alleged to have participated in that public-relations and harassment campaign. Seeking evidence of the alleged relationships, the plaintiffs served PNC Bank with a subpoena for the petitioners’ financial records.
The subpoena was expansive. It demanded essentially every type of account document and transaction record for every PNC account belonging to Roman or Gravitas, covering the period from February 24, 2019—the date of Beach’s death—through the present, a span of more than six years. Roman and Gravitas moved to quash and later sought reconsideration or a protective order. The circuit court denied relief. Because PNC, not the petitioners, possessed the records and faced the subpoena, ordinary appellate routes offered Roman and Gravitas no practical way to prevent disclosure.
The petitioners filed an original-jurisdiction action seeking an injunction from the Supreme Court. The court concluded that the better procedural vehicle was a common-law writ of certiorari, which permits correction of legal error when extraordinary circumstances leave no adequate remedy. The court therefore treated the matter through that framework and reviewed the discovery order directly.
The dispute placed two separate questions before the justices. The first was procedural: whether the petitioners could obtain review before their private records were produced. The second concerned scope: whether the plaintiffs had connected the full universe of requested banking information to the alleged campaign. That separation mattered because an eventual damages claim or appeal could not make disclosed financial and source information confidential again.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court reversed and directed that the subpoena be quashed as overly broad. Ordinarily, a nonparty faced with discovery must comply and lose the ability to challenge disclosure, or refuse, suffer contempt, and appeal the contempt order. That route did not protect these petitioners because they could not compel PNC to risk contempt on their behalf. Their plausible claim that disclosure might expose confidential sources and create physical danger supplied the exceptional circumstances necessary for common-law certiorari.
On the merits, the court applied Rules 26(b)(1) and 26(c), SCRCP. Discovery must relate specifically to the issues in the case, not merely to its general subject matter. When requested discovery threatens particularized harm, the requesting party must show that the information is relevant and necessary, explain specifically how its absence would impair the merits, and address reasonable alternatives. A court must then balance that need against the likely harm.
The subpoena failed that test because it sought all transactions over six years rather than limiting production to transactions involving the defendants or the alleged campaign. Full production would necessarily expose personal and professional information unrelated to the lawsuit. A narrower subpoena could obtain relevant payment information without the same intrusion. The court did not decide the petitioners’ separate arguments under South Carolina’s Reporter’s Shield Law or due process because overbreadth fully resolved the case.
Key Takeaways
- Common-law certiorari may provide review of a discovery order when a nonparty whose information is at stake cannot control whether the subpoena recipient complies or risks contempt.
- South Carolina discovery must be tied to the concrete issues in the litigation; relevance to the lawsuit’s broad narrative is not enough.
- Once particularized harm is shown, the requesting party must demonstrate specific necessity and the court must consider narrower alternatives.
- A request for every financial transaction across many years is vulnerable when targeted categories or counterparties could supply the relevant proof.
Why It Matters
The decision gives South Carolina litigators a practical roadmap for challenging third-party subpoenas before confidential information is irretrievably disclosed. A motion should identify the precise harm, explain why ordinary review cannot prevent it, and offer workable limits such as relevant counterparties, transaction types, or dates. The requesting party, in turn, should build those limits into the subpoena and connect each category to an element or disputed issue.
Although this memorandum opinion is unpublished and generally lacks precedential value under Rule 268(d)(2), SCACR, it is a significant signal from the state’s highest court about enforcing discovery boundaries. The court again emphasized that broad discovery is not boundless discovery, particularly when nonparty privacy and sensitive financial information are involved.