A judge heard arguments on whether to dismiss restaurant owner Weldon Boyd’s separate lawsuit against attorney Mark Tinsley, the lawyer representing Scott Spivey’s family in the wrongful death case tied to the 2023 road-rage shooting. The judge took the motion under advisement and is expected to rule next week.
Boyd, who owns Bouys on the Boulevard, says Tinsley went beyond courtroom advocacy and used select body cam and dashcam videos to fuel a massive media and social media storm. In the complaint, Boyd’s side argues the lawyer was trying to build his own celebrity status rather than help his client, and Boyd’s attorney Desa Ballard pressed that point in court, asking what the defendant’s purpose was in telling “all of these lies” and saying Tinsley wanted to be a celebrity “at the cost of my client.”
Tinsley’s side pushed back hard, telling the judge that none of his public comments or actions were improper and that the complaint tries to turn issues in the wrongful death case into a separate attack on the lawyer. John Thomas Lay argued that if this kind of suit is allowed to stand, every case involving any contact with the media could trigger more litigation, and he said the matter should be handled in the wrongful death lawsuit itself.
The judge questioned whether Boyd’s complaint was aimed at Tinsley as a lawyer or as an individual, and said the filing makes clear it is directed at him in his individual capacity. The court did not decide whether Tinsley acted improperly. The motion to dismiss now sits alongside a larger civil case that is already moving forward after a judge in February denied Boyd’s request for immunity under South Carolina’s stand your ground law.
That ruling left Boyd exposed to potential civil liability in Spivey’s death, and next week’s decision could determine whether his separate lawsuit against Tinsley survives long enough to test how far lawyers can go when they speak publicly about a high-profile case.
