Georgetown has many older residents and retirees along US 17, Front Street, and the roads feeding into the Waccamaw and Winyah Bay communities, and insurance adjusters may lean on that when an older claimant gets hurt, arguing that pre-existing conditions caused the harm.
South Carolina law doesn't let them get away with it: under the "eggshell plaintiff" rule, a defendant takes the injured person as they found them. South Carolina also uses a modified comparative negligence rule. An injured person can still recover as long as their share of fault stays at 50 percent or below, though damages shrink by that percentage.
The Arndt Law Firm has handled personal injury claims throughout the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, including Georgetown County. At our firm, we work to counter these tactics without overpromising results, just steady, informed advocacy for victims fighting for fair compensation. Call us at (843) 310-4645 for a free case review.
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety recorded 1,410 collisions in Georgetown County during the federal fiscal year ending September 30, 2025. Of those, 14 were fatal and 26 involved serious injury, while 382 produced other injuries.
Across the five fiscal years ending in that period, the county recorded 7,486 collisions, with 85 people killed and 225 seriously injured.
The victims-by-age table is where this county differs from its neighbors. Over those five years, the largest number of people killed fell in the 25-34 and 65-74 age groups, at 15 and 14, respectively.
An insurer handling a claim by someone in their late sixties or seventies reaches for a specific argument, and it arrives early: the injury was pre-existing.
Degenerative changes in the spine, knees, and shoulders are visible on imaging in most people past middle age, whether or not they have ever caused symptoms. An adjuster who sees them in a radiology report has a ready-made argument, and it is used to discount a claim rather than to defeat it outright.
The answer is a legal one rather than a medical one. The question South Carolina asks is not whether a condition existed before the collision. It is whether the collision made a previously manageable condition symptomatic, or accelerated it, or turned something a person lived with into something that required surgery. A defendant takes the injured person as found.
That argument is won on the treatment history rather than on the imaging. What a person could do before, what they can do now, whether they had ever sought care for the same complaint, and what a treating physician says about causation all matter more than a radiologist's description of wear.
Two other issues follow the same demographic. Older claimants are more likely to sustain fractures rather than soft tissue injury, and a hip fracture in particular carries a documented risk of lasting loss of independence. And recovery is slower, which means a claim resolved early is a claim resolved before anyone knows the outcome.
US 17, signed locally as Ocean Highway, carries the county's fatal collisions. Published incidents place them at Old Plantation Drive, Hobcaw Road, Egret Run Lane, Professional Lane, and the US 17 Business junction at Murrells Inlet.
One geometry recurs. A vehicle attempting to cross or turn onto US 17 from a private driveway or a side road is struck by traffic moving at highway speed.
In one published collision, a car exiting a private driveway across the highway was hit by a southbound pickup. In another incident, a vehicle attempting to cross US 17 was struck by a pickup traveling southbound. Both were fatal.
That pattern exists because a high-speed highway runs directly past homes, businesses, and community entrances without the turn lanes and signal control a town would provide. It is also the pattern in which an older driver's judgment of a closing gap is most often blamed after the fact, which brings the comparative fault question back to the center of the case.
Other roads appear in the record. Waterford Road, about four miles south of Pawleys Island, produced a fatal single-vehicle run off the road into an embankment and trees. Martin Luther King Road at Parkersville Road produced a fatal motorcycle collision where a car turned left across the rider's path.
South Carolina adopted comparative negligence in 1991, when the state Supreme Court decided Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co. A plaintiff may recover damages if his or her negligence is not greater than that of the defendant, and the recovery is reduced in proportion to the plaintiff's own negligence.
That gives a plaintiff at 50 percent fault a halved recovery and a plaintiff at 51 percent nothing at all. Where several defendants are involved, the plaintiff's share is compared against their combined negligence rather than against each one separately.
South Carolina rewrote a central piece of its injury law effective January 1, 2026. The legislation, 2025 Act No. 42, applies only to causes of action arising or accruing after that date, so the date of the incident determines which version governs.
The change sits in S.C. Code § 15-38-15, which governs how damages are divided among defendants. Under the current version, joint and several liability does not apply to a defendant whose conduct is less than fifty percent of the total fault, and a defendant below that line pays only its own percentage.
Act 42 also narrowed the conduct that keeps full joint and several liability. The earlier version preserved it for conduct involving the use, sale, or possession of alcohol. The current version does not, leaving wilful, wanton, reckless, or intentional acts and conduct involving the illegal or illicit use, sale, or possession of drugs.
The Act restored a further defense. A defendant may now ask the jury to assign a share of the fault to a party who was never sued, provided that party is disclosed within one hundred eighty days of the start of the action, with the defendant carrying the burden of proving that the added party's breach was a proximate cause.
Six situations keep a nonparty off the verdict form, including immunity, wilful or reckless conduct by the nonparty, imputed liability, and claims the statute places outside the rule.
The person who caused an injury is typically not the only party who can be made to pay, and sometimes is not the party who can pay at all. A driver carries a personal policy. A business carries a larger one. A property owner, a contractor, a maintenance company, and a manufacturer each carry their own.
Property cases turn on the injured person's status. South Carolina recognizes four classifications of people who come onto premises: adult trespassers, invitees, licensees, and children, and a different standard of care applies to each.
An invitee, meaning an invited business guest, is owed reasonable care and a warning about latent dangers the owner knew of or should have discovered. A licensee, meaning a social guest, is owed less because the occupier has no duty to search out and discover defects in the land. That distinction decides most slip and fall claims.
In dog bite claims, South Carolina imposes strict liability on the owner or keeper for a bite or attack on a person in a public place or lawfully on private property (§ 47-3-110). No prior bite is needed. The only defenses are provocation that was the proximate cause, and certain law-enforcement-dog conditions.
For rideshare cases, TNC (Transportation Network Company) drivers must carry primary insurance while logged into the app (§ 58-23-1630).
Workplace injuries run on separate rails. S.C. Code § 42-1-540 provides that the rights and remedies under the workers' compensation title exclude all other rights and remedies against the employer, at common law or otherwise.
The same section carries a carve-out that is routinely omitted. The limitation does not apply to injuries resulting from acts by the employer's subcontractor, and it does not bar an action by an employee of one subcontractor against another subcontractor when both were hired by a common employer.
What otherwise survives is the third-party claim. An equipment manufacturer or an unrelated driver or property owner is a third party.
A third-party claim generally keeps the three-year deadline in S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5). If you haven't sued or settled within a year after the carrier accepts liability or pays benefits, the carrier can take over the claim after written notice. The carrier also holds a lien on any recovery.
Cases involving burn injuries on job sites raise this pattern often, since the employer is barred, while an equipment manufacturer or a general contractor is not.
Usually not directly, because workers' compensation is generally the exclusive remedy against an employer. A claim against a third party who caused the injury may still exist.
South Carolina places no general cap on noneconomic damages in ordinary injury cases. Pain, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment are not limited by statute the way they are in some neighboring states.
That matters more for an older claimant than it might at first appear. When an injury costs someone the ability to live independently, to drive, or to care for a spouse, the loss is overwhelmingly noneconomic, and there is no statutory ceiling on it.
Punitive damages require more. The plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the harm resulted from the defendant's wilful, wanton, or reckless conduct, a higher standard than the preponderance governing the rest of the case, and if any defendant asks, the trial is split into two stages before the same jury.
Punitive damages require clear and convincing evidence (§ 15-32-520) and are capped at the greater of three times compensatory damages or $500,000 (§ 15-32-530). The cap does not apply for intent to harm, a felony conviction arising from the same conduct, or impairment by alcohol or drugs.
It disappears altogether in three situations: intent to harm, a felony conviction arising from the same conduct, and impairment by alcohol or drugs to the degree that judgment was substantially impaired.
Because degenerative changes appear on imaging for most people past middle age. South Carolina asks whether the incident made a manageable condition symptomatic, not whether wear existed beforehand, and a defendant takes the injured person as found.
A defendant's personal assets are rarely the real source of recovery. Insurance is. South Carolina requires drivers to carry liability and uninsured motorist coverage at minimum limits of $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 for property damage.
Uninsured motorist coverage is mandatory at those same limits and pays when the at-fault driver has no insurance or leaves the scene. Underinsured motorist coverage, which covers the gap when the at-fault policy is insufficient, is optional.
An insurer must hold a signed form showing that underinsured coverage was offered and either accepted or rejected, and without that form, the insurer has to add the coverage and rate for it.
Out-of-state policies come up regularly here. Published fatal collisions in this county include a couple from Maryland and a driver from Charleston, and a claim involving a visitor insured elsewhere means reading a policy written to different terms rather than assuming South Carolina's apply.
| Coverage type | Required in South Carolina | What it pays |
|---|---|---|
| Bodily injury liability | Yes, 25/50 minimum | Injuries you cause to others |
| Property damage liability | Yes, $25,000 minimum | Damage you cause to property |
| Uninsured motorist | Yes, at the same minimums | Your injuries when the at-fault driver has no coverage or flees |
| Underinsured motorist | No, optional | Your injuries when the at-fault policy is too small |
The general deadline for a personal injury action in South Carolina is three years, set by S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5). Where an injury was not apparent at the time, S.C. Code § 15-3-535 measures the same three years from when the injured person knew, or by reasonable diligence should have known, that a cause of action existed.
A wrongful death action also runs three years, and S.C. Code § 15-3-530(6) is explicit that the period begins to run upon the death of the person on account of whose death the action is brought. South Carolina measures from the date of death rather than from the negligent act.
Two variations shorten the clock. Claims against SC government entities must be filed within two years, or within three years if a verified claim is filed within one year (§ 15-78-110). Damages are capped at $300,000 per person and $600,000 per occurrence, with no punitive damages.
The third-party claim in a workers' compensation case runs one year. Claims by children run longer. Children's claims are tolled while the child is under 18 under S.C. Code §§ 15-3-40. The exact deadline depends on how that statute is applied, so don't wait. Speak with an attorney early.
The South Carolina Highway Patrol investigated every one of the county's published fatal collisions, on US 17 and on the county roads. In a county where fatal collisions occur largely along a state and federal highway corridor, the Highway Patrol is the dominant investigating agency.
The Georgetown County Sheriff's Office responds within the county and handles incidents in county communities. The Georgetown County Coroner's Office confirms fatalities, identifies victims, and states the cause of death, and it maintains a file separate from the investigating agency's that is requested on its own.
Medical records are unusually scattered here. Published fatal collisions show patients taken to Tidelands Georgetown Memorial Hospital, to Tidelands Waccamaw Community Hospital, and to Grand Strand Medical Center in Horry County.
In one collision, two people from the same vehicle went to two different hospitals in two different counties. Which facility received a person determines where the treatment record sits, and a serious claim can involve requests to more than one.
One statutory point limits how far the crash report itself goes. Under S.C. Code § 56-5-1290, the reports drivers and owners must file are not admissible at trial as evidence of negligence or due care, and officers may refer to them only to refresh recollection.
A Georgetown County injury suit is filed in the Court of Common Pleas, which sits in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, the same circuit that serves Horry County. The Clerk of Court supports Common Pleas, Family Court, and General Sessions, and handles the filing of new civil cases, judgments, lis pendens, arbitration actions, and attachments.
Georgetown is the county seat, though the county's largest community is Murrells Inlet at the northern end, so a great many claims arise a considerable distance from the courthouse.
Most claims settle before filing. Filing is still the event that changes the negotiation, because it converts a claim an adjuster is valuing into a case a defense lawyer has to prepare, with discovery obligations attached.
Three years from the date of injury under S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5). Different deadlines apply to government defendants, to workers' compensation third-party claims, and to children.
Yes, as long as your share is not greater than the other side's. At 50 percent or less, you recover, reduced by your percentage. At 51 percent, you recover nothing.
No. The question is whether the incident made a previously manageable condition symptomatic or accelerated it. A defendant takes the injured person as found.
In South Carolina, where the injury occurred, under South Carolina deadlines. Residency is not required.
Nothing. Personal injury consultations are free and our firm works on a contingency basis, so clients pay nothing unless they recover.
The Arndt Law Firm builds Georgetown County claims expecting the pre-existing condition argument rather than reacting to it, because in a county where older adults are the most frequently killed age group, that argument arrives in nearly every serious file. Meeting it means building the treatment history and the functional record early rather than answering an imaging report late.
The second front is where the records sit. Three hospitals across two counties receive patients from this corridor; the Highway Patrol holds the crash file; and the Coroner's Office keeps its own, so a serious claim requires several separate requests rather than one.
Filings go to the Court of Common Pleas in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. Attorney Jonathan S. Arndt has been licensed in South Carolina since 2018 and reviews the claims our firm takes.
Contact us today to schedule your consultation. An early conversation costs nothing and the fee is taken from a recovery rather than billed.
Last reviewed: August 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.
