Losing a family member to someone else's negligence is a loss no claim can undo, and pursuing a legal case is rarely the first thing on a grieving family's mind. But South Carolina law gives families the right to hold responsible parties accountable and to recover for the profound loss they have suffered.
At the Arndt Law Firm, we represent families across Goose Creek and Berkeley County after a wrongful death. If you have lost someone and wonder whether you are owed compensation, contact us. The first consultation is free, and we can help you through this difficult time.
A wrongful death claim arises when a person dies because of another party's negligence or wrongful act, the kind of conduct that would have allowed the person to bring an injury claim had they survived.
South Carolina's wrongful death statute, found at South Carolina Code sections 15-51-10 to 15-51-60, creates this right of action and allows the recovery to address the losses that the death caused to the surviving family members.
A wrongful death claim is brought for the benefit of the family, to compensate them for what the loss of their loved one has cost them. This is different from compensating the deceased person, and it reflects the law's recognition that a death caused by negligence harms not only the person who died but the family left behind.
The claim addresses the family's loss of the relationship, the support, and the companionship the deceased provided, losses the law treats as real and worthy of compensation even though no recovery can truly replace what was lost.
Wrongful death can result from many kinds of negligence. Fatal motor vehicle crashes, including car, truck, and motorcycle collisions, are a common cause. In 2025, 136,044 collisions occurred statewide, resulting in 946 fatalities. And Berkeley County, where Goose Creek sits, saw 100 fatal and injury collisions in that same year.
Pedestrian fatalities are another common cause of wrongful death, but fatalities can also result from unsafe property conditions, defective products, and other forms of negligence.
Whatever the cause, the claim turns on establishing that another party's wrongful conduct caused the death, the same kind of showing required in any injury case, and pursuing it allows the family both to seek accountability and to recover for their loss.
South Carolina law specifies who may bring a wrongful death claim and who benefits from it, and understanding this structure is important to a family considering a case.
Under the wrongful death statute, the claim is brought by the executor or administrator of the deceased person's estate, meaning the personal representative, rather than directly by the family members themselves. This personal representative brings the claim on behalf of the statutory beneficiaries.
The beneficiaries who receive the recovery are defined by statute in an order of priority. The claim is for the benefit of the spouse and children of the deceased first, and if there is no spouse or child, then for the benefit of the parents, and if there are no parents, then for the heirs of the deceased. This statutory order determines who benefits from a wrongful death recovery, and it reflects the relationships the law recognizes as most directly affected by the loss.
This structure means that an early step in a wrongful death case is establishing the personal representative who will bring the claim, which may require opening an estate if one has not been opened. While this is a procedural matter, it is a necessary one, and handling it correctly allows the claim to proceed in the proper form.
The identification of the beneficiaries and the appointment of the personal representative are foundational steps that a family does not have to navigate alone, and they can be handled as part of pursuing the claim so the family is not left to sort out estate procedures at the same time as their grief.
South Carolina law actually provides for two distinct claims that can arise from a death caused by negligence, and understanding the difference is important because they compensate for different losses.
The wrongful death claim, already described, compensates the surviving family members for their loss. The survival action, by contrast, belongs to the deceased person's estate and compensates for the harm the deceased person experienced before death.
The survival action, recognized under South Carolina law, allows the estate to recover for what the deceased person suffered between the injury and death. This can include the conscious pain and suffering the person endured, the medical expenses incurred in treating the fatal injury, and other losses the person experienced before dying.
The survival action is created by South Carolina Code section 15-5-90, which provides that a person's cause of action survives to their personal representative. Under section 15-5-100, reasonable funeral expenses may be recovered under either the survival statute or the wrongful death statute, but they may be sought in only one of the two actions.
If a person survived for a period after the negligent act before succumbing to their injuries, the survival action can be significant, addressing what they went through during that time.
The two claims are typically brought together after a death caused by negligence, because they address complementary losses: the family's loss through the wrongful death claim, and the deceased person's own pre-death suffering and expenses through the survival action.
The recoveries are distributed differently, with the wrongful death recovery going to the statutory beneficiaries and the survival recovery passing through the estate.
The distinction is not merely technical: a death that followed a period of survival, during which the person endured conscious pain and incurred substantial medical care, may support a meaningful survival recovery on top of the wrongful death claim, while an instantaneous death may involve little or no survival component.
Accounting for both is part of presenting the complete picture of what a wrongful death has caused, and handling them together, with attention to how each is valued and distributed, ensures that nothing the law allows for either the family or the estate is left unaddressed.
South Carolina follows modified comparative negligence. If the person who died was partly at fault, the recovery is reduced by that percentage, and it is barred entirely if their share of fault was 51 percent or more. This rule comes from the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision in Nelson v. Concrete Supply Company (1991).
| Claim type | Whose loss it addresses | What it can include |
| Wrongful death | The surviving family members | Loss of companionship, support, and the relationship |
| Survival action | The deceased person's estate | Pre-death pain and suffering and medical expenses |
South Carolina law allows a wrongful death recovery to address the many dimensions of a family's loss, both economic and intangible.
The economic losses include the financial support the deceased would have provided to the family, the loss of services the person performed, funeral and burial expenses, and the medical expenses incurred before death (these last are covered by the survival action). For a family that depended on the deceased's income, the loss of that future support can be substantial.
The law also recognizes losses that are not financial. A wrongful death recovery can address the loss of the companionship, comfort, guidance, and the relationship the deceased provided to their family, the experience that grief makes painfully real.
These intangible losses, including the loss of a spouse's companionship, a parent's care and guidance, or a child's presence, are central to a wrongful death claim, reflecting that the deepest harm of a death is not measured only in dollars. Valuing them requires conveying who the person was and what their loss means to those left behind, which is in part the work of telling the story of a life and a relationship.
Valuing these intangible losses is among the most difficult and important parts of a wrongful death case, precisely because the loss does not come with a price tag. The companionship of a spouse, the guidance of a parent, and the future a child would have had cannot be reduced to a simple calculation, yet the law recognizes them as real and compensable harms.
Establishing their value requires conveying who the person was, the role they played in their family's life, and what their loss means to those left behind, a responsibility handled with care because it asks a grieving family to share what they have lost. This is central to a claim that seeks to reflect the true magnitude of the harm rather than only its financial dimensions.
Punitive damages require clear and convincing evidence of wilful, wanton, or reckless conduct. They are generally capped at the greater of three times the compensatory award or $500,000, adjusted by inflation. That cap is removed entirely where the defendant intended the harm, was convicted of a felony arising from the same conduct, or was impaired by alcohol or drugs.
If the responsible party is a government entity, South Carolina caps recovery at $300,000 per person and $600,000 in total for a single occurrence, and punitive damages and pre-judgment interest are not available.
A death caused by a drunk driver or by reckless conduct may support a punitive award in addition to the compensatory recovery. The full value of a wrongful death claim depends on the circumstances of the death and the nature of the family's loss, which is why these claims require careful and individual attention.
Yes, if they were under 51 percent responsible. Due to South Carolina's comparative fault rule, recovery is reduced by the victim’s share of fault and is barred from recovery should that percentage reach 51 percent. If the deceased was partially responsible for a fatal accident, the surviving family's compensation is reduced proportionally by that exact percentage.
South Carolina law sets a deadline for bringing a wrongful death claim, generally three years from the date of death under South Carolina Code section 15-3-530.
As with other claims, this deadline is shorter and accompanied by additional procedural steps when the responsible party is a government entity. If a government entity is involved, South Carolina's Tort Claims Act may apply. Suit must generally be brought within two years of when the loss was or should have been discovered.
If a verified claim is filed with the agency first, within one year of the loss, the deadline to file suit extends to three years. Filing that claim early is a choice that lengthens the deadline, not a requirement that shortens it.
Beyond the deadline, the practical reasons to act before it are significant. The evidence that establishes how the death occurred and who was responsible is perishable, and in a fatal crash or other incident, the physical evidence, witness accounts, and records can be lost or become harder to obtain over time.
In cases involving a commercial vehicle, a product, or a business, key evidence may be controlled by the responsible party and subject to loss, making prompt preservation important.
The law also recognizes the family's situation by not requiring them to navigate these steps in the immediate aftermath of a loss. There is time to grieve, and a family does not have to act in the first days.
But because evidence degrades and deadlines apply, there is value in understanding the family's rights before too much time passes, so that the option to pursue accountability remains fully available when the family is ready. A family can take this step at their own pace while still protecting what the claim requires.
In the aftermath of a sudden loss, families are not expected to think like investigators, and the most important steps are often simply preserving what already exists.
Keeping any documents related to the death, including any police or incident report, medical records, and records of expenses, creates a foundation for a later claim without requiring the family to do anything beyond holding on to what comes to them.
If the death resulted from a crash or other incident that was investigated, the official report will document the circumstances.
Preserving physical evidence and information matters where the family has access to it. In a fatal crash, the vehicle and its contents, photographs taken at the scene, and the contact information of any witnesses can be important later, and where the death involved a product, keeping the product itself can be essential.
A family does not need to know in advance which pieces will matter; the value lies in not discarding or losing things that may later prove important to establishing how the death occurred.
The family should also be cautious in dealings with insurers. After a fatal incident, an insurer for the responsible party may contact the family, and an early settlement offer or a request for a recorded statement is rarely in the family's interest before the circumstances are understood and the family's rights are clear.
A family is under no obligation to give a statement or accept an offer in the difficult early period, and taking time to understand the situation protects the option to pursue a full and fair claim when the family is ready.
Yes. South Carolina wrongful death damages include the loss of the deceased's companionship, care, and guidance, alongside the financial losses. Even though no amount can replace the person, these are real, compensable harms under South Carolina law.
Many wrongful death claims in the Goose Creek area arise from fatal motor vehicle crashes, given the volume of traffic the area handles. US-52, the city's main artery and a freight corridor, carries heavy commercial-truck and commuter traffic, and high-energy crashes on it and on the routes connecting to Interstate 26 can be fatal.
The interstate itself, a short distance away, carries heavy traffic including commercial trucks and drivers passing through the region, and these roads bring families into contact with the wrongful death process, often suddenly and without warning.
When a crash causes catastrophic injuries, the critically injured in the Goose Creek area are taken to Trident Medical Center in nearby North Charleston, the region's Level II trauma center, with the most catastrophic cases going to MUSC Health University Medical Center in downtown Charleston, the Lowcountry's only Level I trauma center.
South Carolina has made progress on road safety in recent years, with statewide traffic fatalities declining, but fatal crashes remain a reality on the area's roads, and each represents a family facing a profound loss.
Wrongful death claims also arise from causes beyond crashes, including fatal incidents on unsafe property, deaths from defective products, and other negligence. Whatever the cause, the wrongful death and survival claims provide the path for a family to seek accountability and recover for their loss.
The local context, including the fatal crashes that occur on the area's corridors and the nearby interstate, is part of understanding the circumstances that bring families to these claims, which can overlap with Goose Creek car accident claims and truck accident claims.
A Goose Creek wrongful death case is filed in the Berkeley County Court of Common Pleas in Moncks Corner.
The claim is brought by the executor or administrator of the deceased person's estate, on behalf of the statutory beneficiaries, who are the spouse and children first, then parents, then heirs.
A wrongful death claim compensates the family for their loss, while a survival action belongs to the estate and compensates for the pain, suffering, and expenses the deceased experienced before death. Both are often brought together.
Three years from the date of death under S.C. Code § 15-3-530. A shorter deadline and additional steps may apply if a government entity is responsible.
It can recover financial support, funeral and medical expenses, and the loss of companionship, care, and the relationship the deceased provided, along with punitive damages in cases of egregious conduct.
There is time to grieve, and a family does not have to act in the first days. But because evidence can be lost and deadlines apply, understanding your rights before too much time passes protects the option to pursue a claim.
Yes. The wrongful death claim is a separate civil action and proceeds regardless of whether criminal charges are filed or how the criminal case is resolved.
There might be, if the conduct that caused the death was especially reckless, such as in a drunk driving accident. Punitive damages require clear and convincing evidence and are capped by statute.
The Arndt Law Firm handles these 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 handle Goose Creek wrongful death cases by establishing the personal representative, bringing the wrongful death and survival claims together, proving how the death occurred and who was responsible, and pursuing the full recovery the law allows for the family's loss.
Since attorney Arndt previously defended insurers and institutional clients, we understand how these claims are evaluated and contested, and we build each case to hold the responsible parties accountable.
If your family has lost a loved one to another party's negligence in Goose Creek or anywhere in Berkeley County, contact us as soon as possible. The consultation is free, and we handle wrongful death cases on a contingency basis, with no fees unless there is a recovery.
Last reviewed: June 2026
This page was reviewed by Jonathan S. Arndt, licensed in South Carolina since 2018.
