Home › South Carolina › S.C. Code 16-17-450
South Carolina · S.C. Code 16-17-450
Quote checked October 14, 2026 Text match only; current legal status and enforcement not verified.
“Any person who shall wilfully refuse to relinquish immediately a party telephone line when informed that such line is needed for an emergency call to a fire department or police department or for medical aid or ambulance service shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned for not more than thirty days.”
“The term "party line" shall mean a subscriber's line telephone circuit, consisting of two or more main telephone stations connected therewith, each station with a distinctive ring or telephone number.”
“Any person who requests another to relinquish a telephone party line on the pretext that he must place an emergency call, knowing such pretext to be false, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor”
“It shall constitute a defense to a prosecution under subsection (1) that the accused did not know of the emergency in question, or that the accused was using the party telephone line for an emergency call.”
This section doesn't print a penalty of its own. Other parts of the South Carolina Code of Laws may set one; we haven't looked them up, so we don't state one here.
“HISTORY: 1962 Code”
The earliest year in this note is 1962. That's the earliest year the note prints. It doesn't establish when this wording was enacted, took effect or first appeared.
Our reading
South Carolina's quoted definition describes a party line as one subscriber circuit with two or more main stations, each with a distinctive ring or number. Willfully refusing to give up the line immediately after being informed it's needed for an emergency call to the fire department, police, medical aid or an ambulance is a misdemeanor. So is asking someone to give up the line on an emergency pretext you know is false. The section names two defenses: not knowing of the emergency, or already using the line for an emergency call.
Written by Silly Rules from the quoted text above. It's a plain reading, not legal advice. We haven't researched how courts read this section or how often anyone enforces it.
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Every quote on this site was matched against its official page on October 14, 2026. Text match only; current legal status and enforcement not verified.