Affirmed by published opinion. Judge WIDENER wrote the opinion, in which Judges WILKINSON and WILKINS joined.
OPINION
Appellants (plaintiffs), 11 property owners (the owners), brought suit against Amphenol and Allied Signal, (Amphenol) alleging nuisance, trespass, аnd negligence for the release by Amphenol’s plant of trichloroethane (TCE) into the groundwater in and surrounding the owners’ properties. The jury returned a verdict for Amphenol. The owners appeal from the district court’s denial of their motions for judgment as a matter of law and for new trial, as well as several other issues. We affirm the district court’s judgment in all respects.
Plaintiffs are property owners in the Wilde Wood subdivision near Columbia, South Carolina, all surrounding a small man-made lake. The subdivision is located at the bottom of a hill on which defendants’ predecessor in 1967-68 built and began operating the plant in question. The process engaged in by the plant included the use of TCE, a volatile and evaporative organic chemical. After the TCE was used, it was put into a percolation basin, a depression dug in the ground, and left to evaporate. Amphenol expected that any amounts that did not evaporate would be “bound in the soil” and “would not move to other groundwаter systems.” This process was used from 1968 to May 1979, and an estimated 352 gallons of TCE were discharged into the pit during this time.
In 1983, Amphenol learned that TCE had entered the groundwater beneath the percolation basin, and by 1986 it was clear that the TCE was migrating in a subterranean plume,
In June 1971, the Pollution Control Authority (PCA), the predecessor of the DHEC, implemented a regulation prohibiting any waste amenable to treatment or control from being discharged into the waters of the State without such treatment or control. See Rules and Regulations of the Pollution Con
The owners produced the testimony of an expert real estate appraiser describing 60% to 80% decreases in the values of the plaintiffs’ properties as the result of the TCE plume.
The owners commenced suit against Am-phenol on theories of, inter-alia, negligence, trеspass, and nuisance, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The suits were consolidated for trial. The court excluded evidence proffered by the owners regarding a preliminary remediation plan devised by Amphenol to clean up the TCE in the subdivision. The district court also excluded the owners’ expert testimony regarding a certain allegedly comparable salе in the subdivision. Amphenol was permitted over objection to introduce evidence comparing the risks of TCE-contaminated water to the risks of Columbia drinking water generally.
The district court directеd verdicts for Amphenol on the nuisance and punitive damages claims, and the negligence and trespass claims were submitted to the jury. During deliberations, the jury requested that the court define the term nеgligence, and after a hearing, the court gave the jury the definition of simple negligence.
The jury returned verdicts for Amphenol on all claims. The district court denied the owners’ motion for judgment as а matter of law or a new trial.
The owners appeal the denial of their post-trial motions, the district court’s response to the jury’s request for clarification, the directed verdicts on the nuisаnce and punitive damages claims, and the abovementioned evi-dentiary determinations. We address these issues in turn.
I.
There is some dispute as to the appropriate standard of review of the first two issues raised by the owners, whether the owners were entitled to judgment as a matter of law or a new trial on the question of negligence per se. The grant or denial of judgment as a matter оf law is reviewed in this circuit de novo. White v. County of Newberry,
The claim of negligence per se was given to the jury, which returned a verdict for Amphenol. The district court denied the owners’ motion for judgment as a matter of law on the ground that the DHEC regulations at issue did not create a discerniblе standard of care. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Amphenol, we find that the jury could have found for Am-phenol on more than one ground, only one of which was the standard of cаre issue relied upon by the district court.
Because we find sufficient evidence in the record from which a jury could find Amphe-nol not negligent per se, we find no abuse of discretion in the denial of the owners’ motion for new trial.
II.
The owners next challenge the district court’s amplifiсation of its jury instructions in response to a written request by the jury regarding the definition of negligence. We review the amplification of proper jury instructions for abuse of discretion. United States v. Bayer,
III.
The owners next take issue with the directed verdicts to Amphenol on the nuisance claim and the punitive damages demand. We review these questions of law de novo. Gairola v. Virginia Dep’t of Gen. Serve.,
A.
A рrivate nuisance in South Carolina is a substantial and unreasonable inter-ferenee with the use and enjoyment of another’s property. See, e.g., Ravan v. Greenville County,
B.
The owners also challenge the district court’s removal from the jury of their claims fоr punitive damages, arguing that causative violation of a statute must be submitted to the jury as evidence of willful or reckless conduct, and citing Wise v. Broadway,
IV.
The owners allege error in the district court’s treatment of witness testimony and other evidence at trial. Such claims as are made here are reviewed for abuse of discretion. Upon a review of the record, we are of opinion there was no abuse of discretion and affirm the district court’s decisions as to them.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. A plume in the sense used here means an area where the groundwater quality has been altered by the addition of a contaminant.
. There is sufficient evidence in the record from which to conclude that Amphenol did not violate the regulation, because TCE was treated in the percolation basin, in accordance with the standards at the time, before being discharged into the waters of South Carolina. Plaintiffs argue thаt this is a patently unreasonable reading of the PCA-DHEC regulation. We disagree. At the time that TCE was being discharged into the basin, it was believed that all of it would either dissipate in accordance with its volаtile, evapo-rative nature or bind to the soil and not enter the groundwater. Although it is now clear that some of the waste did, in fact, find its way into the waters of South Carolina, it is just as clear that a reаsonable jury could conclude that the percolation basin constituted treatment before such discharge.
We express no opinion on other theories to support the verdict оf the jury such as the fact that the articulated purpose of the regulations was the protection of marine and terrestrial life and that so far as property was mentioned, they refer tо that in the sense of public property as a resource; that Amphenol could not have fore