Rule 501 General Rule

Here's a plain-English summary of this rule:

This rule is about privileges, which are legal protections that let someone refuse to answer certain questions or share certain information in court. Common examples include the privilege between a lawyer and client, or between a doctor and patient.

The rule says that South Carolina courts mostly rely on common law to decide when these privileges apply. Common law means rules that come from past court decisions, not from a written law passed by the legislature. Judges look at previous cases and use good judgment to figure out how privileges should work in each new situation.

There are limits to this approach. If the South Carolina Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, or a specific South Carolina statute already says how a privilege works, courts have to follow that instead. So common law fills in the gaps, but it does not override the Constitution or laws that already exist on the topic.

For someone involved in a case, this means the rules about what you can keep private on the witness stand are not always written down in one place. Courts use past legal decisions and practical reasoning to figure out whether your situation is protected by a privilege.