The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- South Carolina
- Level
- Court
- Authority
- S.C. Const. art. V, § 5; Proviso 1.108, Act 94 of 2021; Home Rule Act
- Issued
- 2021-09-02 Sept. 2, 2021
- Effective
- 2021-09-02 (heard Aug. 31, 2021) (read as 2021-09-02)
- End
- n/a (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Sept. 2, 2021 to Sept. 30, 2021
- Quarters
- 2021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Face-covering requirementSchools and child care
- Addressees
- City of Columbia
- school districts within the City
- every local government considering a school mask ordinance
- Functions reached
- IN in-person instruction
- WF workforce (parents; school staff)
- EC child care (the daycare portion of the ordinances was not before the Court)
- Collection
- South Carolina SC
Operative words
Proviso 1.108 manifestly sets forth the intent of the legislature to prohibit mask mandates funded by the 2021-2022 Appropriations Act in K-12 public schools... The City ordinances would impose a $100 fine for each 'civil infraction.'... The conflict here is express, and, thus, Proviso 1.108 preempts the ordinances... we uphold Proviso 1.108 and declare void the challenged ordinances of the City insofar as they purport to impose a mask mandate in K-12 public schools.
Enforcement
Declaratory judgment; the Attorney General's Aug. 11, 2021 letter to the City recited
Notes
Recites the ordinances' operative words: masks for 'all faculty, staff, children over the age of two (2), and visitors, in all buildings at public and private schools or daycares'; Proviso 1.108 'enacted into law on June 22, 2021.' Footnotes 4-5 give the ordinance URLs (SC-058; SC-059).
Retrieval noteLeft open 'the possibility that a local government could impose a mask mandate without contravening Proviso 1.108' (as the Fourth Circuit read it, SC-043).