At the Arndt Law Firm, we know how devastating it is to lose a loved one unexpectedly. Our team has helped families across Georgetown, SC navigate the aftermath of fatal accidents, and we understand that the legal process can feel overwhelming while you are still grieving.
South Carolina law creates two separate claims after a wrongful death: one for the statutory beneficiaries, and another for the estate. These claims can affect different family members, especially when the person who passed was older. The differences can be confusing and can catch families off guard, which is why we walk each client through what to expect and who is entitled to what.
Our approach is hands-on and personal. We handle every step, from investigating what happened to making sure the right claims are filed for your family's specific situation. No two families are exactly alike, and we take the time to understand your goals and concerns before moving forward.
If you have lost a loved one and have questions about your rights or how to begin, reach out to our team today. We're here to help you get the answers and support you need.
According to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety (SCDPS) Collision Statistics Table, there were 2,025 crashes in Beaufort County in the most recent year available. Of those, 35 involved fatalities or serious injuries, 5 involved DUI with fatal or serious injury, and 2 involved a pedestrian with fatal or serious injury.
The victims by age table separates this county from its neighbors. Over those five years, the largest number of people killed fell in the 65 to 74 band, at 15, with the 75 and over band and the 35 to 44 band next at 12 each, and 25 to 34 at 11. In Beaufort, Horry, and Orangeburg counties, the 25 to 34 band led every time.
The published fatalities bear that out. A 78-year-old was killed in a collision near Pawleys Island. A 76-year-old and a 74-year-old, a married couple visiting from Maryland, were killed on Highway 17 at Hobcaw Road. A 75-year-old from Charleston was killed near Murrells Inlet.
Traffic is the most common source of fatal claims, but not the only one. Falls, drownings, fires, workplace incidents, deaths from medical care, and untreated emergencies can also lead to wrongful death actions. In fatal crashes, South Carolina requires uninsured motorist coverage on every auto policy, and insurers must offer underinsured coverage, so the deceased person's own policy may pay when the at-fault driver's coverage is short. See South Carolina Code Ann. §§ 38-77-150, 38-77-160 (2023).
Deaths caused by medical negligence follow separate rules, including a statutory limit on non-economic damages and a separate outer time limit for filing. In a county with an older population, the fall cases in particular are underrepresented in any traffic table.
Who is most often killed in Georgetown County collisions?
Over the five years ending September 30, 2024, the 65 to 74 age band recorded the most deaths at 15, followed by the 75 and over band and the 35 to 44 band at 12 each. Three neighboring counties all had 25 to 34 as their highest band.
The wrongful death action compensates the statutory beneficiaries for what the death took from them. The survival action, under South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-5-90 (2023), carries forward the claim the deceased person would have had if they had lived, meaning conscious pain and suffering before death and the medical expenses of the final injury.
Where the money goes is what families do not anticipate. Wrongful death proceeds are generally paid to the statutory beneficiaries directly rather than through the estate. Survival proceeds are paid to the estate, follow the will or the intestacy rules, and are exposed to the estate's creditors.
Those groups diverge more sharply when the person who died was older. The statutory beneficiaries are fixed in order: a surviving spouse and children first, then parents where there is no spouse or child, then heirs at law. A person in their seventies is likely to leave adult children who are statutory beneficiaries, and may also leave a will directing the estate somewhere else entirely, including to a second spouse, to grandchildren, or to a charity.
That mismatch turns the allocation of a settlement between the two claims into a substantive decision about who receives what. Deciding it after a number has been agreed, without having thought about it, is how families end up in conflict at the end of a case that had gone well.
South Carolina does not let a grieving family member simply file. Under South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-51-20 (2023), a wrongful death action must be brought by or in the name of the executor or administrator of the estate. That person is the personal representative, named in a will or appointed by the probate court where there is none.
That creates a sequencing problem. A probate appointment has to happen before anything can be filed, and probate runs on its own timetable while the limitations clock keeps running.
The personal representative also holds the authority to gather records. Medical records, the coroner's file, and employment records are not released to a family member with no legal standing to request them.
Where the deceased person had an estate plan, which is more common in an older decedent, the will may name an executor who is willing to serve, which shortens the step. Where the estate is administered in another state because the person was visiting, the interaction between that administration and the authority needed to bring a South Carolina action is a question to settle early rather than discover late.
The wrongful death action must be filed within three years of the date of death under South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-3-530(6) (2023). The survival action is the deceased person's own injury claim under South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-3-530(5) (2023), and its three years generally run from the injury, not the death. Where someone survived for months before dying, the survival deadline comes first.
This distinction matters because a family that waits to file until three years from the date of death can lose the survival claim. South Carolina law does not extend the survival claim's deadline due to death, and South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-3-90 (2023) does not apply to extend it except in the case of reversed judgments.
Claims against a state or local government entity must be filed in court within two years. That extends to three years only if a verified claim is first filed with the agency and received within one year after the loss was or should have been discovered. See South Carolina Code Ann. §§ 15-78-80, 15-78-110 (2023). The Tort Claims Act also caps recovery at $300,000 per person and $600,000 per occurrence, and prohibits punitive damages and prejudgment interest. Where the death happened at work, a third-party claim carries a one-year clock of its own.
The county's published fatal collisions show what these cases look like, and each was investigated by the South Carolina Highway Patrol.
A car exiting a private driveway across US 17 was struck by a southbound pickup, and the driver died at the hospital. A vehicle attempting to cross US 17 was struck by a southbound pickup, killing a 78-year-old. Two vehicles both traveling north on Highway 17 at Hobcaw Road collided, killing a visiting couple. A westbound car and a northbound vehicle collided near the US 17 Business junction at Murrells Inlet, killing a 75-year-old at the scene.
Away from the highway, a car ran off Waterford Road into an embankment and trees, killing the sole occupant, and a motorcycle was struck by a car turning left at Martin Luther King Road and Parkersville Road.
Each of those geometries is reconstructable from physical evidence, which matters because in every one the person best placed to describe what happened did not survive it. The same patterns run through the county's non-fatal crash claims.
A fatal case generates a file spread across agencies, and in this county the medical side is unusually scattered.
The South Carolina Highway Patrol holds the collision report, the scene diagram, measurements, and any citations. The Georgetown County Sheriff's Office maintains its own records where its deputies responded. The Georgetown County Coroner's Office is separate again and holds the cause of death determination and any toxicology, and that record does not arrive with the Highway Patrol file.
Medical records come from whichever facility received the person, and published collisions in this county show patients taken to Tidelands Waccamaw Community Hospital (Level IV adult trauma), Tidelands Georgetown Memorial, and Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach (Level I trauma). In one collision, a husband and wife from the same vehicle were taken to two different hospitals in two different counties, and both died. That is two separate records requests, in two counties, for one crash.
In a survival claim, those records carry particular weight, because the evidence of conscious pain and suffering before death is found in the treatment notes and nowhere else.
Do I get the coroner's report with the crash report?
No, the Georgetown County Coroner's Office maintains a separate file, including the cause of death determination and any toxicology, requested separately from the investigating agency's report.
Every wrongful death case rests on an ordinary liability question: would the person have had a claim if they had survived? If the answer is no, the death claim fails regardless of how devastating the loss is.
The difference is the missing witness. The account comes from physical evidence, the vehicles, scene measurements, the other driver, independent witnesses, and any recorded data. Where the deceased was turning or crossing a highway, sight distance from that position and the closing speed of the approaching vehicle are the whole argument, and they are measured rather than recalled.
Comparative fault still applies. The family can recover as long as the deceased person was 50 percent or less at fault, under Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., with the award reduced by that percentage. Where the person who died was older and was making a turn, that argument arises immediately and has to be met with measurement rather than sentiment.
One statutory point helps. Under South Carolina Code Ann. § 56-5-1290 (2023), the required accident reports are not evidence of negligence at trial, though officers may use them to refresh their memory when testifying. So, an unfavorable narrative in a report does not settle the question.
A fatal workplace injury runs on a track families rarely expect. South Carolina Code Ann. § 42-1-540 (2023) provides that the remedies under the workers' compensation title exclude all other rights and remedies against the employer, so the obvious defendant is usually unavailable no matter how clearly the employer was at fault.
The same section carries a carve-out that matters on site where multiple contractors are hired. The limitation does not apply to injuries resulting from acts of a subcontractor of the employer, and it does not bar an employee of one subcontractor from suing another subcontractor where both were hired by a common employer.
What otherwise remains is the third-party claim: another contractor, the driver who caused the crash, the manufacturer of equipment, the owner of the property. If the family does not file the third-party action within one year after the compensation carrier accepts liability, the right to bring it can pass to the carrier after twenty days' written notice. See South Carolina Code Ann. § 42-1-560(b)-(c) (2023).
It can come back to the family if the carrier does not act in time. The compensation carrier has a lien on any third-party recovery for benefits it has paid. See South Carolina Code Ann. § 42-1-560 (2023). Acting early keeps the family in control of the case.
One year is shorter than the three-year wrongful death deadline, and families told about the longer number can lose the only viable claim while believing they have time. Fatal burn injury cases raise this pattern regularly.
| Element | Wrongful death claim | Survival claim |
|---|---|---|
| Governing provision | S.C. Code Section 15-51-10 et seq. | S.C. Code Section 15-5-90 |
| Who brings it | The personal representative | The personal representative |
| Who is paid | Statutory beneficiaries directly | The estate |
| What it covers | The family's losses from the death | Pain and medical bills before death |
| Reachable by estate creditors | No | Yes |
The wrongful death claim addresses what the beneficiaries lost: financial support, the value of services the person provided, funeral and burial costs, the loss of the deceased person's companionship, experience, and judgment, and the beneficiaries' grief, sorrow, mental shock and suffering. Funeral expenses can be recovered in only one of the two actions.
That last category deserves attention when the person who died was retired. An insurer valuing the claim on lost future earnings alone will produce a low number, because a retired person's earnings were low or nil. What the statute compensates includes companionship, experience, and judgment, and the services a person provided to a spouse or family, including care for an ailing partner, are a real component rather than a sentimental one.
The survival claim addresses what the person suffered, meaning conscious pain before death and the medical expenses incurred. Where someone survived in hospital for a period before dying, that component can be substantial.
South Carolina does not impose a cap on non-economic damages in typical wrongful death cases. However, when the defendant is a government entity, the Tort Claims Act limits recovery to $300,000 per person and $600,000 per incident, and it completely prohibits punitive damages.
Punitive damages are generally capped at the greater of three times compensatory damages or $500,000, rising to four times or $2 million in certain cases, with amounts adjusted for inflation. The cap does not apply where the defendant intended harm, was convicted of a felony for the same conduct, or was impaired by alcohol or drugs. See South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-32-530 (2023).
A wrongful death or survival settlement in South Carolina is not final when the parties agree on a number. It has to be approved by a court, and only the personal representative has authority to petition for approval.
Wrongful death proceeds are divided among the statutory beneficiaries in the shares they would take by intestacy. The court must approve the settlement, including the split between the two claims, as fair and reasonable.
When the beneficiaries include adult children from more than one marriage, or a surviving spouse and children who are not that spouse's children, the allocation question is where disagreement surfaces, and the court's involvement is a protection rather than an obstacle.
Where a beneficiary is a minor, the court's role is more involved, and the funds are usually protected until majority. Minority also affects timing on any claim a child brings in their own right.
Under South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-3-40 (2023), time while a child is under eighteen is generally not counted against the child's own injury claim, subject to limits in the statute. How that works out depends on the facts, so a surviving child's own claim should be reviewed promptly rather than assumed to be extended. This tolling provision does not extend the wrongful death deadline itself.
Cases arising in Georgetown County are typically filed in the Georgetown County Court of Common Pleas, 401 Cleland St., Room 115, Georgetown, SC 29440, though venue can also lie where the defendant resides. 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.
Two proceedings run in parallel: the probate matter that creates the authority to sue, and the civil action itself. They are separate courts with separate filings and separate timelines, and delay in the first stalls the second.
Where the family lives out of state, which the published fatalities show is not unusual here, none of that requires residency. The claim arises where the death occurred and proceeds in South Carolina under South Carolina deadlines.
A death that occurs in Georgetown County while the family lives elsewhere adds steps rather than obstacles, and this county's published fatalities show it is not unusual. A married couple killed on Highway 17 were visiting from Maryland, and another victim was from Charleston.
The claim proceeds in South Carolina because that is where it arose, under South Carolina deadlines and South Carolina law. Residency is not a requirement for the claim itself.
The probate step is where the complication sits. A personal representative has to be appointed before anything can be filed or even requested, and where the deceased person's estate is administered in another state, the interaction between that administration and the authority needed to bring a South Carolina action is a question to settle early rather than discover late.
Records also sit here rather than there. The Highway Patrol file, the Coroner's file, and the treating hospital's records are all in South Carolina, and in this county the medical records may sit at more than one facility across two counties. Each requires a separate request from someone with authority to make it.
We live out of state. Can we still bring the claim?
Yes. The claim arises where the death occurred and proceeds in South Carolina under South Carolina deadlines. The probate appointment needed to bring it is worth addressing early, particularly where the estate is administered elsewhere.
In South Carolina, only the executor or administrator of the estate can file a wrongful death claim on behalf of the statutory beneficiaries. Individual family members are not able to file claims on their own.
Three years from the date of death under South Carolina Code Ann. § 15-3-530(6) (2023). Claims against a state or local government entity must be filed in court within two years, or three years if a verified claim was first filed with the agency and received within one year after the loss was or should have been discovered. See South Carolina Code Ann. §§ 15-78-80, 15-78-110 (2023).
Not necessarily. A wrongful death claim considers not just lost income but also the value of companionship, guidance, and support that the deceased provided. The emotional and practical contributions of your loved one are significant factors in determining the claim’s worth.
Absolutely. You can bring the claim in South Carolina, where the death occurred. Just be mindful of South Carolina’s deadlines and processes. It’s wise to start the probate appointment early in the process.
You won’t have to pay anything upfront. Most consultations are free, and attorneys typically work on a contingency basis, meaning they only get paid if you win your case.
At the Arndt Law Firm, our team approaches every wrongful death case with care, focus, and a commitment to guiding families through each step. We start by helping you secure the necessary probate appointment, ensuring that your loved one's legal rights are protected from the very beginning. We know how vital it is to act quickly; key evidence can disappear in the weeks and months after a fatal accident, so we move fast to preserve what's needed for your case.
We understand how complex these cases can be, especially when it comes to dividing the recovery between the wrongful death and survival claims. Our team works closely with families to make sure everyone understands their rights and that any split is fair and thoughtful. Because Georgetown County often sees older decedents, we're especially mindful of the unique questions that can arise when beneficiaries and estate heirs are not the same people.
Throughout the process, we bring experience and local insight to every case. Attorney Jonathan S. Arndt personally reviews all fatal injury matters for our firm and makes sure your case gets the attention it deserves. We handle filings, court appearances, and negotiations so your family can focus on healing.
Families are charged nothing for a first conversation, and no fee unless there is a recovery. You can reach the firm through the contact page. No family should feel rushed, though the physical evidence a fatal case depends on is gone long before three years have passed.
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.
