Condition of highway corner argued in court

A circuit court judge has rejected a plaintiff’s bid to compel the South Carolina Department of Transportation to make safety improvements to Shiloh Road and Goddard Avenue near Seneca.  The ruling was made by 14th Circuit Judge Robert Bonds of Walterboro.  Bonds ruled against the plaintiff, Triumph Donnelly Studios Corporation, identified in court documents as an Arizona corporation with a satellite office in Seneca.  The complaint alleged that on January 22, 2020 a pedestrian walking in the road was hit by a speeding car and that, since that date, a request was made for a bicycle path, curb and gutter, as well as what the pleadings called a “proper storm drainage system.”  It also claims that, the following year, a scout for a documentary film about feral cats in a junkyard was nearly hit on Goddard Avenue by another speeding car because, as it alleged, “there is not sidewalk on said rural road maintained by Defendant.”  But in dismissing the case, the judge wrote in his order, “It appears that the determination of the necessity and suitability of specific improvements to transportation facilities and the design and construction of improvements to transportation facilities are all matters within the statutory discretion of Defendant SCDOT…and are not merely ministerial acts which might be compelled….”