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Injured in Charleston because someone else was careless? We take on the insurers, build the proof, and pursue every dollar your claim is actually worth.
A wreck on I-26, a fall at a rental on the peninsula, a distracted driver coming off the Ravenel Bridge. However it happened, the aftermath lands all at once: an emergency room bill from MUSC or Trident, a paycheck you are not earning, and nobody willing to say who is responsible. Schiller and Hamilton Law Firm represents injured people across Charleston County and the Lowcountry. Injury work is what we do, and we build every file as though a jury will see it.
What you can recover here turns on South Carolina law and on how the case is assembled from day one. Below you will find how claims work, the injuries we take on, what money may be on the table, and the filing deadlines that end a case once they pass. Would you rather just talk it out? Our Charleston office sits at 1629 Meeting Street Road. Call 843-350-5420. The consultation is free, and you owe no fee unless we recover.
Plenty of people walk away from a Charleston accident assuming nothing can be done. Often something can. A claim exists when another party’s carelessness hurt you, and proving it comes down to four pieces: a duty owed to you, a failure to meet it, a direct link between that failure and your injury, and real losses you can show.
Picture a visitor turning the wrong way off a downtown one-way street, a landlord in West Ashley who left a rotted step alone all season, or a port carrier that kept a driver rolling past the hours the rules allow. Each one owed a duty of ordinary care. Each one fell short. If that is why you are hurt, the law may owe you something back.
Nobody can size up a claim from a short description, and the adjuster telling you it is worth little is not a neutral party. Sit down with a Charleston attorney at our Meeting Street Road office, at no cost, and get a straight read on what you are holding.
Our Charleston practice reaches across the whole span of injury law. In the Lowcountry we are called most often about:
Every claim carries its own facts, its own injuries, and its own proof problems, and those are what decide its value. Simple or difficult, yours gets the same preparation.
A claim cannot undo the injury. What it can do is move the cost of it onto the party that caused it. South Carolina recognizes more than one category of loss.
The first is money you can count. Ambulance transport, the trauma team at MUSC or Trident Medical Center, imaging, surgery, rehab, prescriptions, the shifts you missed, and the earning power you lose for good if you cannot return to the work you did. Repairs to your vehicle belong here too.
The second is the part no invoice captures. Pain that does not let up, sleep that will not come, scarring, the nerves that hit you now on the Ravenel Bridge, and the hobbies, travel, and family time the injury took away.
Where conduct crosses from careless into reckless or deliberate, South Carolina also permits punitive damages, meant to punish and to deter. Cases vary widely. Our job is to document everything you lost so none of it quietly drops out of the number.
Running a claim yourself while your body is still healing is more than most people can carry. Hand it over and the work becomes ours. We pull the Charleston County incident report, collect your records from MUSC, Trident, or wherever you were treated, find the people who saw it happen, and when the facts call for it, bring in reconstruction engineers and treating specialists to explain the damage.
All contact with the insurer runs through us. Adjusters are paid to shrink payouts, and one offhand sentence on a recorded line can cost you real money. We take those calls, turn down the first cheap number, and put together a demand backed by evidence rather than argument.
Because each file is built for a courtroom from the first week, carriers treat our demands seriously. That posture usually produces a better settlement. When it does not, we are ready to try the case in the Ninth Judicial Circuit, which covers Charleston and Berkeley counties.
Fault is not all or nothing in this state, and where the line falls decides whether you get paid. South Carolina applies modified comparative negligence, adopted by the state Supreme Court in Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co. You recover as long as your share of the negligence is not greater than the defendant’s, meaning 50 percent or less. The award then drops by whatever percentage of blame sits with you.
Run the math. Damages of 100,000 dollars with 20 percent of the fault on you comes out to 80,000 dollars. Cross the line, though, and the door shuts. At 51 percent or more you collect nothing at all.
Knowing that, insurers push fault toward you, and after a Charleston crash they will reach for whatever is handy: the tourist traffic, the rain, the speed you were carrying. How the scene gets documented and how the story gets told is what stops it. We lock down the record early and keep your share of the blame honest.
File late and the merits stop mattering. South Carolina gives most injured plaintiffs three years from the day they were hurt, set out in S.C. Code section 15-3-530(5). A wrongful death action also runs three years, but the clock starts on the date of death rather than the date of the injury, under section 15-3-530(6). Miss the date and the court will almost certainly close the file unheard.
Other claims move faster. Where a city, a county, the state, or a public agency is involved, the South Carolina Tort Claims Act generally allows two years, extending to three only if you first file a claim with the entity. Those matters carry procedural traps that are easy to fall into.
Three years sounds generous until you watch a case age. Skid marks wash off Rivers Avenue, cameras overwrite, and witnesses leave town. Call while the evidence is still there. Waiting until the deadline is close only helps the other side.
Going it alone is allowed. It is also lopsided. On the other side sit adjusters, investigators, and defense counsel whose whole assignment is keeping your payout small. A Charleston personal injury lawyer puts someone of equal footing on yours.
We work in these courts, know how a file moves through the Ninth Judicial Circuit, and recognize the arguments carriers run in Lowcountry cases. Our fee is contingent: nothing out of pocket at the start, and no attorney fee at all unless we recover for you. That arrangement means your bank balance does not decide whether you get real representation.
At Schiller and Hamilton Law Firm you are a person, not a file number. We return calls, explain things without the legal fog, and press for the full value of the claim. Reach our Charleston office at 843-350-5420, or stop by 1629 Meeting Street Road. The first conversation is free.
Nothing at the start. Our fee is contingent, which means it comes out of what we recover and only if we recover. If we lose, you owe us no attorney fee. The first meeting costs nothing either, so finding out where your Charleston claim stands carries no downside.
Most injury suits must be filed within three years of the injury under S.C. Code section 15-3-530(5), and a wrongful death suit within three years of the death under section 15-3-530(6). Claims against a government body fall under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, generally two years, with added notice steps. Deadlines differ, so ask early.
You may still be paid. Under South Carolina’s modified comparative negligence rule, you recover if your share of the fault is not greater than the other side’s, so 50 percent or less, with the award cut by your percentage. At 51 percent or more you recover nothing. We work to keep the blame assigned to you accurate.
S.C. Code section 38-77-140 sets the floor at 25,000 dollars for injury to one person, 50,000 dollars per accident, and 25,000 dollars for property damage. Section 38-77-150 also requires uninsured motorist coverage, which can pay you when the at-fault driver has none. After a crash we look for every policy that might apply.
Car, truck, and motorcycle wrecks, pedestrian and bicycle collisions, slip and fall and other premises claims, medical malpractice, nursing home abuse, workers compensation, dog bites, catastrophic injury, and wrongful death. Injury law is all we do, and each case is built for trial. Call 843-350-5420 about yours.
No recovery, no fee.
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Tell us what happened in Charleston and get an honest read on your claim, free. No recovery, no fee.
