A drunk driving crash has a way of splitting life into before and after. One minute you're heading home along Fording Island Road after dinner in Old Town Bluffton, and the next you're dealing with sirens, a totaled car, and injuries you never saw coming. What makes it harder is knowing it didn't have to happen. Someone chose to get behind the wheel impaired, and you're the one left paying for it.
South Carolina law recognizes this, allowing not only compensation for your losses but, in many drunk driving cases, punitive damages that are not subject to the usual caps.
There may also be more liable parties than just the drunk driver: the bar that served them may also be held responsible, if certain conditions are met. A Bluffton, SC, drunk driving accident lawyer can help you build a strong claim and seek the recovery you need.
At the Arndt Law Firm, we represent people injured in drunk driving accidents across Bluffton and Beaufort County, so if you wonder whether you are owed compensation after receiving an injury, contact us: the first consultation is free.
Two separate proceedings follow a serious impaired driving crash, and they answer different questions: a criminal case and a civil claim.
Neither controls the other. A conviction is useful evidence in the civil case and is not required for it to succeed. An acquittal or a dismissed charge does not end the civil claim, because the standard of proof is lower and the questions are not the same.
The timelines diverge as well. A criminal matter can resolve in months or drag on far longer, and a civil claim does not have to wait for it. Where the criminal case is still open, some evidence gathered by law enforcement may be slower to obtain, which affects sequencing.
No. The civil claim is separate and proceeds on its own timeline. A criminal conviction is helpful evidence and is not a precondition. An acquittal does not bar the civil claim, because the civil standard of proof is lower.
Punitive damages in South Carolina are meant to punish, and they are harder to obtain than ordinary damages. Under Section 15-32-520(D), a plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the harm resulted from the defendant's wilful, wanton, or reckless conduct.
The procedure is separate too. If any defendant asks, the trial is conducted in two stages before the same jury, with the punitive question reached only after compensatory damages are decided. Any award must be specific to each defendant.
Then comes the part that changes an impaired driving case. Section 15-32-530(A) caps punitive damages at the greater of three times the compensatory award or a statutory dollar figure that is adjusted each year for inflation.
Section 15-32-530(C) removes that cap altogether in three situations, and the third is squarely on point: where the defendant acted or failed to act while under the influence of alcohol or drugs to the degree that the defendant's judgment was substantially impaired.
The other two are worth knowing because they often overlap here. The cap also disappears where the defendant had an intent to harm that in fact harmed the claimant, and where the defendant has pled guilty to or been convicted of a felony arising out of the same conduct, and that conduct proximately caused the damages. A felony driving conviction can therefore trigger two separate routes past the cap.
South Carolina has no dram shop statute. A claim against a bar is a negligence claim built on a violation of the alcohol licensing statutes (Section 61-6-2220 for liquor and liquor by the drink, and Section 61-4-580(A)(2) for beer and wine), which is treated as evidence of negligence, together with proof that the service was a proximate cause of the crash. That means the service itself has to be documented
That way, state law restricts sales of alcohol to intoxicated people, and a licensee that breaks that restriction can face civil exposure alongside the driver. The legislature rewrote this area in 2025 Act No. 42, and the changes took effect January 1, 2026, applying only to causes of action arising or accruing after that date.
Three changes matter to a victim. First, the sale restriction now carries a knowledge element: a licensee may not knowingly sell alcoholic liquors to a person in an intoxicated condition. Second, a new provision addresses what happens when both the licensee and a charged driver are found liable.
If a verdict is rendered against both a licensee and a defendant charged under the impaired driving statutes, the licensee is jointly and severally liable for fifty percent of the plaintiff's actual damages.
Third, and less discussed, the Act made alcohol server training mandatory. A server or manager must hold a current certificate, and where one does not, the licensee must provide training within thirty calendar days of employment. That converts a question about a bar's practices into a documented compliance record that can be requested.
The date of the crash decides which version of the law applies, so it is checked before any of this analysis begins.
A licensee that knowingly serves a person in an intoxicated condition can face civil exposure. For claims accruing on or after January 1, 2026, where a verdict is returned against both the licensee and a charged driver, the licensee is jointly and severally liable for fifty percent of the plaintiff's actual damages.
A claim is only worth what can be collected, and impaired driving cases often involve a driver whose policy will not cover the loss. That is why the second defendant matters in practical terms.
South Carolina requires on-premises licensees that remain open after 5:00 p.m. to carry liquor liability coverage, or general liability with a liquor liability endorsement, with an annual aggregate limit of at least $1,000,000. The policy must provide per-occurrence coverage of at least fifty percent of that aggregate.
There is a significant qualification that is easy to miss. The statute allows risk mitigation credits that reduce the required aggregate, and an establishment that qualifies for enough of them must maintain an annual aggregate of at least $300,000.
The credits attach to things like ending alcohol service by midnight, completing server training, keeping alcohol below forty percent of gross sales, and using forensic identification systems. So the size of the available pool is a fact to establish.
On the driver's side, the ordinary auto coverage rules apply. Liability limits start at $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000; uninsured motorist coverage is required at those same limits, and underinsured motorist coverage is optional but subject to the signed form rule, where a carrier that cannot produce a signed offer and rejection form must add the coverage.
| Source of recovery | Typical availability | What to establish |
|---|---|---|
| Driver's liability policy | Often at or near the 25/50 minimum | Limits, and whether any exclusion is asserted |
| Your underinsured motorist coverage | Optional coverage, may exist by operation of law | Whether the carrier holds a signed rejection form |
| Licensee's liquor liability policy | $1,000,000 aggregate, reducible to $300,000 by credits | Which credits the establishment claimed |
| Punitive damages | Cap removed for substantial impairment | Clear and convincing evidence of the conduct |
The criminal file is the obvious starting point and is not the whole of it. Breath or blood results, the arrest report, dashcam and bodycam footage, and field sobriety documentation all come from the investigating agency. In Bluffton, that is the Bluffton Police Department inside town limits and the South Carolina Highway Patrol on the corridor outside them, and the two maintain separate systems.
Where a licensee is a potential defendant, a different set of records applies. Point of sale data shows what was sold and when, and server schedules show who was working.
Training certificates, now required by statute, show whether the establishment met its obligation. Surveillance footage shows the person's condition at the time of service, and it sits on a retention cycle measured in days or weeks.
Medical records from the treating facility can also include toxicology performed for clinical reasons. Seriously injured patients from this area are transported to Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, and records from an out-of-state hospital take longer to assemble.
Witness accounts age quickly. The people who saw someone being served, or saw the driving before impact, are the hardest evidence to reconstruct later and the easiest to capture early.
Under Nelson v. Concrete Supply Company (1991), a victim recovers as long as their share of the fault is not greater than the defendant's, with the award reduced by that percentage and barred at 51 percent. If there is more than one defendant (a driver and a bar, for example), the injured person's fault is compared to the combined fault of all of them, not to any one defendant separately.
Act 42 changed the apportionment picture in a way that cuts against injured people here. The earlier version of Section 15-38-15 preserved full joint and several liability for conduct involving the use, sale, or possession of alcohol. The current version does not. What remains are wilful, wanton, reckless, or intentional acts and conduct involving illegal drugs.
Reckless conduct still qualifies, and impaired driving is frequently pleaded and proved as reckless. That makes the characterization of the driver's conduct a live issue with real consequences. A South Carolina personal injury lawyer can help you build a claim.
Impairment changes how a claim is calculated, and it does so in two directions at once.
On the compensatory side, the categories are ordinary. Emergency treatment, imaging, surgery, follow-up care, therapy, and any future care a physician projects form the economic component, together with lost income and lost earning capacity. South Carolina places no general statutory cap on noneconomic damages in an ordinary injury case, so pain, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment are not limited by statute.
On the punitive side, the base cap is the greater of three times the compensatory award or a statutory figure adjusted annually for inflation. It rises to the greater of four times compensatory or $2,000,000 if a defendant's conduct was motivated primarily by unreasonable financial gain known to a managing agent, or if the conduct could subject the defendant to a felony conviction. It is removed entirely on a finding of substantial impairment.
The practical consequence is that the compensatory award becomes the multiplicand instead of the whole of the claim, and building the compensatory case carefully affects the punitive exposure as well.
Punitive damages are unavailable against a government defendant under the Tort Claims Act, which prohibits them along with prejudgment interest. Where an impaired driver was operating a government vehicle, the analysis changes completely, and damages are capped.
No. They require proof by clear and convincing evidence of wilful, wanton, or reckless conduct. What impairment does is remove the statutory ceiling once that proof is made.
Two situations come up often, and neither is straightforward emotionally. The first is a passenger injured by the driver they were riding with. That claim exists, and comparative fault may be raised depending on what the passenger knew, which is argued from evidence.
The second is a claim where the at-fault driver is a friend or family member. What is really being pursued in most of those cases is an insurance policy that exists for exactly this purpose, and the person named as defendant is frequently not the person who pays. That is worth understanding before deciding not to bring a claim.
If someone was killed, two separate claims arise. The wrongful death action compensates the statutory beneficiaries, and the survival action covers what the person suffered before death, with proceeds going to different recipients and settlement of either requiring court approval.
The general deadline is three years from the date of the crash under Section 15-3-530(5). A wrongful death claim also runs three years, under Section 15-3-530(6), measured from the date of death.
No South Carolina provision extends the civil deadline because criminal charges were filed. A criminal conviction matters to the punitive damages analysis, which is a different point entirely, and it does not stop or restart the civil clock.
Shorter clocks apply in two situations. A claim involving a government vehicle or a road design issue runs two years under the Tort Claims Act, extended to three if a verified claim is filed within the first year. Missing the one-year claim window does not end the case, but it locks the deadline at two years.
The second situation is that if the injured person was working, a third-party claim must be commenced within one year of the compensation carrier accepting liability or making payment.
Claims by children can run longer, since the period may be tolled during minority.
A suit is brought in the Court of Common Pleas for Beaufort County, in the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit, with the Clerk of Court at 102 Ribaut Road in Beaufort. Beaufort is the county seat, roughly forty minutes from Bluffton.
Where a licensee is a defendant, the case involves a commercial insurer and a business with a permit at stake, which changes the posture from an ordinary two-vehicle claim. Those matters are also more document-driven, and filing is often what produces the records that were not voluntarily provided.
The Beaufort County Coroner's Office maintains its own file in a fatal case, separate from the investigating agency's, including the cause of death determination and any toxicology. It is a separate request.
The criminal prosecution generates a body of evidence at public expense, and a civil claimant benefits from it without controlling it.
The file typically contains the arrest report, breath or blood analysis, field sobriety documentation, dashcam and bodycam footage, and witness statements taken close to the event. Where a conviction follows, it is admissible evidence, and it also bears on the punitive analysis, since a guilty plea or conviction for a felony arising from the same conduct is one of the three findings that remove the punitive cap.
Timing is the complication. Material held by a prosecuting office may not be released while a case is pending, which affects sequencing. The civil claim does not wait for the criminal outcome, and evidence that a civil claimant needs quickly, particularly records held by a licensee, is not part of the criminal file at all.
Restitution ordered in a criminal case is not a substitute for the civil claim. It typically addresses a narrower category of loss, and accepting it does not resolve the civil matter.
It is strong evidence and not the whole case. It also matters to punitive damages, since a felony conviction arising from the same conduct is one of three findings that removes the statutory cap.
Not where the defendant acted while under the influence to the degree that judgment was substantially impaired. Section 15-32-530(C) removes the cap entirely in that situation.
Possibly. A licensee that knowingly serves someone in an intoxicated condition can face liability, and for claims accruing on or after January 1, 2026, a licensee found liable alongside a charged driver is jointly and severally liable for fifty percent of actual damages.
Three years from the date of the crash under South Carolina Code section 15-3-530(5). A shorter deadline may apply if a government entity is responsible.
No. The civil deadline is three years from the crash regardless of the criminal case. A conviction is relevant to punitive damages, which is a separate question.
Your own underinsured motorist coverage may respond, and a liquor liability policy may be available where an establishment served the driver. Both are worth identifying early.
The Arndt Law Firm handles drunk driving cases on a contingency basis, meaning no fee unless there is a recovery. A free consultation is the usual way to discuss whether you have a claim.
At the Arndt Law Firm, we treat an impaired driving claim as two investigations running together: the driver, and whoever put the driver in a position to drive. The second one is time-sensitive, because point-of-sale records, server schedules, and surveillance footage are held by a business with no obligation to keep them once its own retention period runs.
On the damages side, we build toward the impairment exception deliberately, since clear and convincing evidence of willful, wanton, or reckless conduct is what removes the statutory ceiling. Attorney Arndt previously defended insurers, so we understand how these claims are evaluated and contested, and we build each case to hold the responsible parties fully accountable.
If you or a loved one was injured by a drunk driver in Bluffton or anywhere in Beaufort County, acting early is of the utmost importance. Do not hesitate to contact us or call (843) 493-4590: the consultation is free, and we handle these cases on a contingency basis, so there are no fees unless we recover for you.
Last reviewed: September 2026
This page was reviewed by Jonathan S. Arndt, licensed in South Carolina since 2018.
Content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a licensed South Carolina attorney for guidance specific to your situation.
