Personal Injury Law in South Carolina

Nothing. Zero. There is no fee for the first conversation, no obligation to hire us, and no fine print.

We work on a pure contingency fee — we only get paid if we recover money for you. Our fee comes out of the settlement, not your pocket. If we don't win, you don't owe us a dime, not even for case expenses.

That means we only take cases we genuinely believe in — and we'll tell you honestly during the consultation whether you have a strong claim, a borderline one, or no case at all.

• No retainer required
• No hourly billing
• No fee unless we win
• All case costs advanced by the firm

South Carolina's general statute of limitations for personal injury is three (3) years from the date of the accident or injury. Wrongful death is also three years, measured from the date of death.

But shorter deadlines apply in several common situations. If a government entity is involved (a city bus, a state employee, a county property), you may have only two years and you must serve a formal Notice of Claim long before that. Medical malpractice has its own complex timing rules. Maritime and federal admiralty cases follow separate federal deadlines.

Just as critically — evidence vanishes fast. Skid marks fade within days. Surveillance footage is overwritten in 30–90 days. Witnesses move and forget. The longer you wait, the harder the case becomes, even if the legal deadline hasn't passed.

• Personal injury: 3 years from the incident
• Wrongful death: 3 years from the date of death
• Government/municipal claims: as little as 2 years (with notice)
• Maritime claims: separate federal deadlines

Probably not — the vast majority of personal injury cases settle before trial. But here's the secret most law firms won't tell you: how much you settle for depends almost entirely on whether the insurance company believes your lawyer is willing and able to take the case to a jury.

Settlement-only firms get settlement-only offers. Insurance carriers track which firms file suit and which fold. After 40+ years in South Carolina courtrooms, Taylor & Taylor are on the trial-ready list — and that translates directly into bigger offers, earlier in the process.

If your case does go to trial, you won't be navigating it alone. We prepare every client carefully, walk through expected questions, and keep you informed at every step. You'll never be surprised in a courtroom.

You can almost certainly still recover. South Carolina follows a 'modified comparative negligence' rule with a 51% bar. As long as a jury finds you less than 51% responsible for the accident, you can recover damages — your award is just reduced by your percentage of fault.

Example: if your damages are $100,000 and the jury finds you 20% at fault, you take home $80,000. If the jury finds you 50% at fault, you take home $50,000. Only at 51% or higher does recovery disappear entirely.

Insurance adjusters know this rule and will aggressively try to push fault onto you to discount your claim — even when the evidence is squarely against their driver. Our job is to push back hard with police reports, accident reconstruction, dash-cam footage, phone records, and witness statements.

Yes — fluently. Howard Taylor served two years in the U.S. Peace Corps in El Salvador before law school, and has spent his career representing South Carolina's Hispanic community in their language and on their terms.

You can call (843) 414-5203 to speak directly with Howard in Spanish. There's no language barrier between you and your attorney, no awkward translation app, no pass-off to an outside interpreter. Whether your case involves an undocumented worker injured on a job site or a family navigating an unfamiliar legal system, we handle it with the cultural fluency it deserves.

• Atención personal en español
• Howard W. Taylor — Peace Corps, El Salvador
• Casos de accidentes, lesiones y muerte injusta

The first hour matters more than people realize. If you're physically able, follow these steps in order — and don't worry about looking 'litigious' for documenting things. Insurance companies certainly will be.

Above all: don't post about the accident on social media, don't give a recorded statement to the at-fault driver's insurance, and don't accept a quick settlement offer. Call us first. The first offer is almost never the right one.

• Call 911 — always get a police report on file
• Photograph the scene, vehicles, license plates, and injuries
• Get names and phone numbers of every witness before they leave
• See a doctor the same day, even if you 'feel fine'
• Save every receipt — medical, transportation, lost-work documentation
• Call Taylor & Taylor before signing or saying anything to insurance

Honestly? Nobody — including us — can give you a real number in the first phone call. Anyone who does is either guessing or trying to sign you up. The honest answer is that case value depends on a dozen variables that take weeks of investigation to nail down.

We look at: the severity and permanence of your injuries, your past and projected future medical bills, lost wages and reduced earning capacity, available insurance coverage on every party, the strength of liability evidence, the at-fault party's conduct (was it negligent or reckless?), and how comparable cases have settled or been tried in South Carolina recently.

What we can promise: we will always pursue the full value of your case — not just the easy first offer — and we'll explain in plain English how every dollar in any offer is calculated.

South Carolina law allows recovery for both economic damages (the dollars-and-cents losses) and non-economic damages (the human costs that aren't on a receipt). In the right cases, punitive damages are also available — money meant to punish reckless or intentional misconduct.

• Past and future medical bills (ER, surgery, therapy, prescriptions)
• Lost wages and reduced future earning capacity
• Property damage (vehicle repair or replacement)
• Pain, suffering, and emotional distress
• Permanent injury, scarring, and disfigurement
• Loss of consortium / impact on your family
• Punitive damages in DUI, reckless, or intentional cases

Don't give up. South Carolina law requires that every auto policy include uninsured motorist (UM) coverage, and most policies also include underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage. That means your own policy may pay for damages caused by a driver who has no insurance, has too little insurance, or fled the scene.

In multi-vehicle households, you may even be able to 'stack' UM/UIM coverage across multiple policies — multiplying the available limits substantially. This is one of the most under-utilized areas of SC insurance law, and one Van Taylor literally helped shape with his appellate work on behalf of injury victims.

If you've been hit by an uninsured or hit-and-run driver, do not let your own insurance company minimize what they owe you. They are not on your side at that moment, despite the friendly ads.

Yes. That's exactly why contingency fees exist. We advance every cost of pursuing your case — filing fees, expert witnesses, deposition costs, medical record retrieval, accident reconstruction — out of our own pocket. You don't pay anything as the case moves forward.

If we recover money for you, our fee and the case costs come out of the settlement. If we don't recover anything, you owe nothing — not the fee, not the costs.

This is the great equalizer of the American civil justice system: a hospital orderly or a single parent can hire the same caliber of lawyer as a Fortune 500 CEO, and the insurance company has to take them just as seriously.