Gamecock Club gets final victory in lawsuit over football fans’ prized parking spaces
The S.C. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 5-0 in favor of the University of South Carolina’s Gamecock Club in a five-year legal contest involving prized football fan parking spaces and three longstanding Gamecock Club members.
Basically, the unanimous decision, written by Associate Justice John Kittredge, means that the three Gamecock Club members – George Lee III, Mena Gardiner and John Love – may have to settle for less than the best parking spaces near to the football stadium.
It was a complicated case. For years, Lee, Gardiner and Love enjoyed being able to park in a single choice parking space each on the concrete apron around the football stadium, which on fall Saturday home games becomes a sacred sports pilgrimage site for thousands of Gamecock fans.
Lee, Gardiner and Love had those privileged sites because they, or a family member, had in the 1980s made a very large donation to the Gamecock Club, or purchased a life insurance policy valued at a minimum of $100,000 and named USC as the beneficiary. Fans who made those kinds of contributions were called Lifetime members.
But in 2012, because of security reasons, USC closed the apron area of the stadium to just about all parking and gave Lifetime members priority parking for two spaces in a new parking area, the old Farmers Market, across the street from the stadium.
What Love, Gardiner and Lee objected to in their lawsuit was this: whereas the stadium’s apron area they once had access to was undeniably the best stadium parking, they would now be lumped in a potentially larger pool of priority parking spaces in the Farmers Market. That meant they might not get the best parking spaces available at the Farmers Market.
In its opinion, the high court gave great weight to the original contracts the Gamecock Club had written concerning the parking to be awarded.
Those contracts, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling, “did not guarantee ... a particular parking space” nor did they make any promises about the precise kind of priority the Lifetime members would get. The Supreme Court rejected an argument by the Lifetime members that a 2008 letter from a Gamecock Club official indicating Lifetime members would be given top parking priority changed the original contract.
“Written contracts must be respected,” the Supreme Court ruled.
Attorney Bobby Stepp, who represented the Gamecock Club and USC along with Bess DuRant, said, “Basically, what the opinion does is agree with us in that where you have an unambiguous contract that doesn’t contain the sort of promise the plaintiffs want it to contain, they can’t rewrite the contract.”
Attorney Jay Babb, co-counsel with Lewis Cromer, who represented the fans, said, “We are disappointed with the decision, but we certainly respect the Supreme Court and its ruling.”
However, Babb said, his clients sincerely believed that since they had been given the best parking spaces before, they should be entitled to the top parking spaces in the Farmers Market area. But now, since the stadium apron area is off limts, the clients may be subject to being moved around in the new parking area.
The Gamecock Club, a high-profile, fund-raising fan club for USC sports, has about 17,000 members who last year contributed some $15.2 million to be members.
The club, formed in 1940, is a critical component of University of South Carolina athletic success, both in generating fan enthusiasm and in helping fund some 500 student-athletes in numerous sports. It has long offered perks such as prime seating tickets and parking to big contributors. The more the contribution, the more the perk.
The Gamecock Club, the Supreme Court noted, no longer offers Lifetime memberships.
This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 2:12 PM with the headline "Gamecock Club gets final victory in lawsuit over football fans’ prized parking spaces."