Helping Victims Obtain Compensation

Personal Injury Attorneys in South Carolina
hughey law home office exterior

Experienced Personal Injury Attorneys

The personal injury lawyers at the Hughey Law Firm regularly take on the big insurance companies and represent injured accident victims during settlement negotiations and at jury trials.

Our experienced lawyers can aggressively advocate for you at the negotiation table or in the courtroom to help you achieve the settlement or jury verdict you deserve.

When someone acts in a reckless or careless manner and causes injury to another person, they can legally be on the line for damages. Insurance companies and their lawyers who regularly represent these individuals are not in the business of compensating you for your injuries. Instead, they will do everything they can to try and “poke holes” in your case and reduce its value.

Do I Need a Charleston Personal Injury Lawyer?
Yes. Insurance companies regularly handle injury claims, and they have tactics to convince claimants to accept much lower settlements than they deserve—or even nothing at all. This helps ensure the insurance company has maximum profits.

When you file your claim with the help of the right Charleston personal injury lawyer, however, you demonstrate to the insurer that you mean business. Our attorneys will not back down to insurance companies, and we know how to negotiate for the most favorable settlement possible. Having a lawyer also demonstrates that you will not hesitate to file a lawsuit if the insurance company insists on lowballing you. If a lawsuit does become necessary, you will have an experienced litigator ready to represent your rights in court.

While you never need a lawyer to file a claim, it is certainly highly beneficial to you, your family, and your financial recovery to do so.

On Your Side

From fine dining to amazing historical sites, Charleston is a favorite destination for more than 6,000,000 visitors annually. The Charleston metropolitan statistical area boasts a population of more than 760,000. Both the population and the number of tourists are expected to increase in the coming years.

Unfortunately, more people and more activities bring more opportunities for accidents to happen. If you are injured in an accident due to the recklessness or negligence of another person, you may pursue compensation. But when that happens, you want a law firm with the experience, resources, and results to put your mind at ease and fight the insurance companies that refuse to pay you what you need to recover.

You need the skilled, award-winning attorneys at the Hughey Law Firm.

Over the years, we’ve recovered more than $195 million for our clients. We’ve taken cases all the way to the state Supreme Court when we had to. We teach other lawyers how to fight difficult cases where they lack experience.

We’ve earned praise from our clients and other attorneys in surveys and rankings by AVVO (including a Client’s Choice award), Martindale-Hubble (including the rare Client Distinction Award), the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, and the National Trial Lawyers Association.

When you hire the Hughey Law Firm, you get local Charleston personal injury lawyers who take seriously their mission to serve our clients, the law—and our community. Over the years, Hughey Law Firm has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless volunteer hours to help at-risk and disadvantaged families and children in Charleston.

Call us now to see how the Hughey Law Firm can serve you.

Charleston Nursing Home Abuse Attorney

About Personal Injury Claims in South Carolina

South Carolina personal injury law encompasses a wide variety of accidents that can occur as a result of someone else’s carelessness or negligence. Personal injury cases may involve car and truck accidents, defective products, slip and falls, and premises liability. Each state in the nation has rules regarding the filing of personal injury claims. Here are some of the highlights of South Carolina’s personal injury statutes:
  • The statute of limitations for filing a personal injury claim in South Carolina is generally three years from the date of the accident.
  • The state has a modified comparative negligence rule. What this means is that if you are found to be partially responsible for the accident that caused your injuries, any award you receive for your damages will be reduced by the same percentage as your fault. For example, if you were twenty percent responsible for the accident, your damage award will be reduced by twenty percent.
  • If you are found to be more than fifty percent responsible for your accident, then you are not eligible to seek compensation for damages from other at-fault parties.
  • The types of damages that may be awarded for a personal injury claim include economic damages such as medical bills, lost wages, and property damages; as well as non-economic damages such as pain and suffering. Additionally, punitive damages—meant to punish the defendant for reckless or negligent behavior—may be awarded.
  • Punitive damages in personal injury cases are capped at three times actual damages or $500,000—whichever is greater.
  • The vast majority of personal injury cases will be settled before trial. Mediation is required in South Carolina civil litigation for the purpose of encouraging a settlement.
  • In South Carolina, there is strict liability for dog bite cases. What this means is that a dog owner is liable for any injury to another person by their dog, even if the dog had no previous history of aggression.
  • It is possible in South Carolina to file a personal injury claim against a governmental agency or its employees if the injury you incurred was the result of recklessness or negligence on the part of an entity or individual’s lawful actions. However, if the injury occurred due to unlawful actions, then damages may be sought only from the individual whose actions were unlawful, not the governmental agency.

Our Practice Areas

There are many ways in which an accident can occur. Here is a list of some of the areas of personal injury law that we have particular experience in assisting our clients:

Wrongful Death

Losing a loved one unexpectedly brings grief as well as complexity to the lives of family members left behind. Unfortunately, the process of holding the at-fault party accountable for the wrongful death of your loved one is complex as well. The experienced attorneys at Hughey Law Firm can guide you through that process.

Catastrophic Injuries

Certain injuries can result in a lifetime of medical care and expenses, and take away the victim’s ability not only to work at the job he or she formerly held, but to be gainfully employed at all. If you or a loved one has suffered catastrophic injuries in an accident caused by someone else, you deserve an injury lawyer who will fight for you to get the necessary compensation to provide the care and necessities you need for life.

Slip and Fall Accidents

Slip and fall and trip and fall accidents are among the most common premises liability claims. These types of accidents can result in serious injuries. If you have been injured due to an unsafe condition at a residential, commercial, or public property, you may be eligible to file a premises liability claim.

Product Liability

Consumers have the right to expect that the products, medications, and food that they have purchased are safe to use. If you’ve been injured due to a defective product, you may have a valid product liability claim.

Worker’s Compensation

If you have been injured in a workplace accident, you have the right to file a worker’s compensation claim in order to get compensation for your injuries, including medical treatments and lost wages. We are happy to answer questions and provide guidance in your decision to file a claim. Additionally, if your workplace accident was caused by the recklessness or carelessness of an individual, you may be able to seek damages from the at-fault party who should also be held liable.

Nursing Home Injuries

If your loved one has been mistreated, abused, or neglected by the staff at a nursing facility, we will fight to hold these facilities accountable for their actions, not only for your loved one’s sake but for the sake of preventing others from being injured by the same negligent actions.

Frequently Asked Questions

About Personal Injuries
When you get injured in an accident, it can have a huge impact on your life. It’s only natural to feel confused, angry, and sad. If someone was at fault for your injury, it’s your right to seek compensation for the physical and emotional damage you sustained. After all, medical bills and lost income due to your accident can potentially put you in a hole that is difficult to get out of. If an accident injured you, seek help from our Charleston attorneys to learn more about what you can do next. Here are a few of the most frequently asked questions about personal injury.

Browse Categories Below:

Elements of Proof in a Personal Injury Case

In order to prove negligence in a personal injury case, the accident victim must be able to demonstrate four legal elements.

Available Damages

Common Damages in Personal Injury Claims
A natural question from clients is how much they can expect to receive from a successful claim. While it would be nice to provide an answer immediately, we would first need to evaluate the damages in your specific situation.

However, depending on your circumstances, some common damages that you might include in personal injury claims are:

Medical bills
Medical expenses are the first type of damages you might think to include in your personal injury claim, though you must consider all of your expenses related to your medical care.

These can include:

  • All of your expenses right after the injury, including ambulance transportation, diagnosis and trauma care in the emergency room, or an initial visit to urgent care
  • All costs associated with admission to the hospital, intensive care unit (ICU), a burn center, or another specialized care facility
  • Surgical costs and related hospital stays
  • Medications
  • Specialist and follow-up appointments
  • Inpatient or outpatient rehabilitative therapy
  • Occupational therapy
  • Medical equipment or devices
  • Home health care
  • Long-term care stemming from the injury

You should also consider mileage or childcare costs due to doctor’s appointments and other incidental expenses. If your medical care will extend beyond your injury claim’s resolution, you also must determine and seek the estimated costs of your future treatment. Our team can utilize medical experts to know the accurate value to seek for future medical-related losses.

Lost Earnings
In many cases, injury victims must miss work due to treatment, doctor’s orders, or restrictions created by the injury. If you have to take leave from work, you can recover for all the wages you lost. If you cannot return to your previous job and need to switch to a lower-paying position or less-fulfilling career path, we can use our network of experts to calculate your future lost earning abilities to include in your damages.

Non-economic Losses
Not all damages stem directly from monetary losses, as many injury victims recover compensation for non-economic losses, which are intangible.

This does not mean you can’t seek financial recovery for these damages, however, as our attorneys know how to calculate the value of:

  • Physical pain and suffering
  • Emotional and mental trauma
  • Loss of enjoyment of life
  • Permanent impairments, disabilities, or disfigurement
  • Loss of consortium

You want to request the full value of your claim from the start to ensure you don’t miss out on any compensation that you need and deserve.