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When negligent medical care injures someone in Charleston, we help the patient and the family find out why and who answers for it.
Charleston is a regional medical center. Patients come to the peninsula and to the hospitals in Mount Pleasant, West Ashley, North Charleston and Summerville from all over the Lowcountry, and the vast majority of that care is delivered competently by people who are good at their jobs. Volume and complexity still leave room for error. When a clinician departs from the accepted standard of care and a patient is injured because of it, the fallout can reshape a household for years. A cancer named too late, an operation that damages the wrong structure, a dose that should never have been given.
Schiller and Hamilton Law Firm keeps a Charleston office at 1629 Meeting Street Road, and we represent Lowcountry patients and families who need to understand what happened to them. Malpractice claims are not ordinary injury claims. South Carolina layers on pre-suit steps and hard deadlines that must be satisfied in the right order, and a misstep at the front end can end a case that deserved to be heard on its merits. What follows is a plain account of how these claims actually work here. To talk through your own situation, call (843) 350-5420. The consultation is free.
Malpractice is not the same thing as a bad result. It is treatment that falls below what a reasonably prudent provider in the same specialty would have delivered under the same circumstances, where that shortfall is what hurt the patient. Medicine carries genuine risk, and careful, attentive care sometimes still ends badly. The legal question is narrower than the emotional one: did this provider do, or fail to do, something that a competent peer in that role would not have.
The patterns that surface most often in Charleston involve cancer, heart attacks and strokes that were read or triaged too slowly, injuries inflicted during surgery, anesthesia complications, the wrong drug or the wrong dose, harm to a mother or a newborn during labor and delivery, emergency department discharges that sent home a patient who was in real trouble, and post-procedure patients who went unmonitored. A workable claim has four parts: a provider-patient duty, a breach of the standard of care, a causal link between that breach and the injury, and real damages. Causation is usually where the fight is, and it turns on expert testimony.
A malpractice suit here cannot begin the way a car crash suit begins. S.C. Code section 15-79-125 requires the plaintiff to file a Notice of Intent to File Suit first, with an expert affidavit filed at the same time, and to serve every named provider under the same rules that govern a summons and complaint. Filing the Notice tolls the applicable statutes of limitations while the pre-suit process runs. That is useful, but only if the sequence is handled correctly from the beginning.
The affidavit answers to section 15-36-100. It has to come from someone qualified as to the acceptable conduct of the professional whose care is in question, and it must identify at least one negligent act or omission along with the factual basis for it on the evidence available when it is filed. If the affidavit is missing and the defense moves to dismiss, the complaint is subject to dismissal for failure to state a claim, with only narrow statutory relief available. After service of the Notice, the parties must hold a mediation conference no sooner than ninety days and no later than one hundred twenty days out, extendable by up to sixty days for good cause. If the mediator declares an impasse, the plaintiff may file the summons and complaint within sixty days of that declaration or before the limitations period expires, whichever comes later.
The clock is unforgiving in these cases, and once it runs out the claim is generally gone no matter how solid the medicine was. Section 15-3-545 sets the period at three years from the treatment, omission or operation that caused the harm, or three years from the date the injury was discovered or reasonably should have been discovered. That discovery language carries weight in cases built on imaging that was misread or a malignancy nobody named, because a patient often has no reason to suspect anything went wrong for a long stretch.
The same statute sets an outer ceiling, a statute of repose. However late the discovery, the action generally cannot be brought more than six years from the date of occurrence. Foreign object claims run on a separate track, with two years from discovery and in no event a limitation shorter than three years after the object was placed. Minority tolls the deadline as well, though not for more than seven years on account of minority and not more than one year after the disability ends. Which rule governs depends entirely on the facts, so the sensible move is to have someone check the dates early rather than late.
The point of a recovery is to restore what the negligence took away. Economic damages are the countable losses: hospital and physician bills already run up, the future care the injury will require, corrective surgery and rehabilitation, equipment, wages lost while recovering, and diminished earning capacity where a patient cannot go back to the same work. South Carolina places no cap on these.
Noneconomic damages cover pain, mental anguish, scarring and disfigurement, and the loss of the ordinary enjoyment of life. In malpractice cases these are limited by S.C. Code section 15-32-220, with one limit per claimant against a single provider or institution and a higher aggregate limit where several defendants are liable. Both figures are adjusted every year against the Consumer Price Index and published in the State Register, so the controlling number depends on the year. The limits do not apply where the factfinder finds gross negligence or wilful, wanton or reckless conduct that proximately caused the harm, or where a defendant engaged in fraud about the claim or altered or destroyed records to avoid liability. Where negligent care kills a patient, South Carolina law provides wrongful death and survival claims.
People tend to picture a malpractice case as one patient against one doctor. In practice the responsible parties are often several. Depending on what went wrong, the surgeon, the attending physician, a resident, a nurse, the anesthesiologist, a radiologist reading a study from another building, or the pharmacist who filled the order may each carry a share, and frequently more than one of them does.
Institutions answer too. A hospital, surgical center, clinic or nursing facility can be liable for its own conduct, including unsafe staffing levels, credentialing failures, thin training, and safety protocols that existed on paper and nowhere on the floor. In some circumstances it is also answerable for what its employees did. Working out who belongs in a Charleston case means reading the chart line by line and putting the record in front of experts who know how that specific care is supposed to be delivered. It shapes the proof, and it determines whether there is coverage available to pay a judgment.
South Carolina uses modified comparative negligence, adopted by the state Supreme Court in Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co. A plaintiff may recover as long as his own negligence is not greater than the defendant’s, which in practice means fifty percent or less. Past that line the recovery is nothing at all.
Below the line, the award is reduced by the plaintiff’s share. A patient assigned twenty percent of the fault collects eighty percent of the damages the jury found. Defense counsel press this point hard in malpractice cases, and the arguments are familiar: the patient skipped follow-up appointments, did not take the medication as directed, left part of the history out, or waited far too long to seek care. Where more than one defendant is involved, the plaintiff’s negligence is compared against their combined negligence. A few percentage points move real money, which is why this is worth contesting with evidence instead of conceding.
Malpractice is among the most demanding civil work in this state. The Notice of Intent, the expert affidavit, the mandatory mediation window, and the limitations and repose deadlines each create a place where a legitimate claim can die on procedure before anyone examines the medicine. On the other side are hospital systems and insurers represented by defense firms that have handled hundreds of these and begin building the file the day the incident is reported.
Schiller and Hamilton Law Firm takes Charleston medical malpractice cases on a contingency fee. No attorney fee is owed unless we recover for you, and the first conversation costs nothing. We obtain and read the records, retain qualified experts, and carry the pre-suit requirements South Carolina imposes while you concentrate on treatment and your family. Our Charleston office is at 1629 Meeting Street Road, Charleston, SC 29405. If you believe negligent care injured you or someone close to you, call (843) 350-5420.
Section 15-3-545 allows three years from the treatment or omission, or three years from when the injury was discovered or reasonably should have been, subject to an outer repose period of six years from the occurrence. Foreign object claims and claims involving minors follow separate rules, and filing the Notice of Intent tolls the deadline. Have the dates reviewed early.
Yes. Section 15-79-125 requires a Notice of Intent to File Suit, filed and served before the lawsuit, with an expert affidavit filed at the same time under section 15-36-100. The affidavit must identify at least one negligent act or omission and the factual basis for it. The parties then mediate, generally between ninety and one hundred twenty days after service.
South Carolina applies modified comparative negligence. You can recover as long as your negligence is not greater than the defendant’s, meaning fifty percent or less, and your award is cut by your share of the fault. Above fifty percent you recover nothing. With several defendants, your fault is compared to their combined fault.
Nothing up front. We take Charleston medical malpractice claims on a contingency fee, so an attorney fee is owed only if we obtain a recovery for you, and the first consultation is free. You can have the records reviewed and your questions answered without any financial risk.
Economic losses such as medical bills and lost earnings are not capped. Noneconomic damages are limited by section 15-32-220, per claimant against one provider or institution and by a higher total where multiple defendants are liable, and those amounts are adjusted annually for inflation. The limits do not apply to gross negligence, wilful, wanton or reckless conduct, fraud, or altered records.
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