Rule 82.Jurisdiction and venue

Rule 82(a) is a rule about what the SCRCP is not. Adopting a uniform set of procedural rules could be read as quietly shifting which courts can hear which cases, so Rule 82(a) forecloses that reading directly: nothing in the SCRCP extends or limits any South Carolina court's jurisdiction, and nothing in the SCRCP changes venue except as Rule 82(b) itself provides. Jurisdiction and venue remain creatures of the constitution and statutes, not of procedural rulemaking.

Rule 82(b) supplies that one carved-out exception. When a case is filed in the wrong county or the wrong court, the rule does not let the court throw the case out outright. Instead, the court must transfer the action to a proper county or court where it could have been brought in the first place. That single word — transfer instead of dismiss — spares a plaintiff who filed in the wrong place from having to start over, along with whatever statute-of-limitations or refiling costs a dismissal would create.

Rule 82(c) addresses a separate, narrower mechanical point: removal to federal court. When a party files a petition to remove a pending state action to federal court, the state court does not need to enter any order accepting the petition or directing that the case be removed. The removal proceeds on the filing itself, without an extra step of state court sign-off.