At the Arndt Law Firm, our team understands that a personal injury can turn your life upside down in an instant. Whether you were hurt in a traffic accident, slipped on unsafe property, suffered a dog bite, or were injured on the job, the aftermath can feel overwhelming. We believe that no one should have to navigate these challenges alone.
Our team of dedicated professionals has deep roots in Myrtle Beach and Horry County, and we have seen firsthand the impact a serious injury can have on individuals and families. We make it our mission to provide clear guidance every step of the way, explaining your rights, answering your questions, and fighting for the compensation you deserve.
We know that every case is unique. That’s why we take the time to listen, investigate all possible sources of recovery, and ensure that insurance companies don’t cut corners on your claim. Our approach is straightforward, compassionate, and grounded in a thorough understanding of South Carolina law.
If you or a loved one has been injured due to someone else’s negligence, reach out to our team today for a free consultation. Let us help you take the next step toward recovery and peace of mind.
In 2025, Horry County recorded 220 fatal and serious-injury crashes, including 38 involving DUI and 24 involving pedestrians (South Carolina Department of Public Safety).
Across the five fiscal years ending in that period, the county recorded 54,154 collisions in total, with 348 people killed and 1,028 seriously injured.
Those numbers describe a claims environment rather than a curiosity. The overwhelming majority of injured people in this county were not catastrophically hurt. They needed treatment, missed work, and dealt with an adjuster handling a large volume of similar files. Those are the claims most often resolved for less than they are worth, because the process is built for speed.
The age data points the same way. Over five years, people aged 25 to 34 accounted for the largest share of deaths and serious injuries in the county, at 74 killed and 198 seriously injured, with the 35 to 44 band close behind. Those are working ages, where lost earning capacity is a real component of a claim and is regularly missing from an early offer.
How common are serious injury crashes in Horry County?
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety recorded 169 serious injury collisions and 60 fatal collisions in Horry County during the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, out of 11,004 collisions in total.
South Carolina adopted comparative negligence in 1991, when the state Supreme Court decided Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co. The rule it announced is short. 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.
Read carefully: that gives a plaintiff at 50 percent fault a halved recovery and a plaintiff at 51 percent nothing at all. One percentage point separates a reduced verdict from a zero. Where several defendants are involved, the plaintiff's share is compared against their combined negligence rather than against each one separately, which usually helps the injured person.
The authority matters as much as the number. This is a common law rule from a court decision rather than a statute. Pages that attribute the 51 percent bar to a section of the South Carolina Code have attached the rule to the wrong source, and that distinction surfaces quickly when a claim is litigated rather than settled. The wider South Carolina personal injury analysis works from the case.
Since 2005, a defendant less than 50% at fault has paid only its own share. For claims arising after January 1, 2026, Act 42 dropped the grossly negligent and alcohol exceptions and let defendants assign fault to people who were not sued. Section 15-38-15 exists in two versions, before and after January 1, 2026. The new version applies to claims arising or accruing after January 1, 2026.
The change sits in Section 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. A defendant below that line pays only its own percentage.
Act 42 also narrowed the conduct that keeps full joint and several liability in place. The earlier version preserved it 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 the illegal or illicit use, sale, or possession of drugs.
On a corridor like US 17 Bypass, where a single collision can involve four vehicles, that rule decides whether the best insured defendant can be made to answer for the whole loss or only for its own share.
Act 42 restored a defense with direct consequences for what an injured person recovers. A defendant may now ask the jury to assign a share of the fault to a party who was never sued, and that share reduces what the named defendants owe.
There are conditions. The nondefendant must be disclosed within one hundred eighty days of the start of the action, or later for good cause. The defendant carries the burden of proving that the added party's breach of duty was a proximate cause of the injuries, unless the plaintiff amends the pleadings to bring that party in directly. A plaintiff who does add them gets the benefit of the amendment relating to the original filing.
Six situations keep a nonparty off the verdict form under § 15-38-15(H): (1) the nonparty is immune or otherwise not subject to suit; (2) the nonparty's conduct was willful, wanton, reckless, or intentional; (3) a party whose fault is imputed to the defendant; (4) strict-liability claims (for example, dog bites under § 47-3-110); (5) asbestos claims; (6) actions brought by a government entity within the categories the statute names.
The practical effect is that every potentially responsible party has to be identified early, before a defendant names one. A claim built around a single defendant can lose a substantial share of its value to a party nobody investigated.
The person who caused an injury is often 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 and turns on why the person was there rather than how badly they were hurt.
Workplace injuries run on separate rails. Section 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, which surprises people whose injury was plainly someone's fault.
The same section carries a carve-out that is routinely omitted. The limitation does not apply to injuries resulting from acts of a subcontractor of the employer, and it does not bar an action by an employee of one subcontractor against another subcontractor where a common employer hired both.
What otherwise survives is the third-party claim: another contractor on the site, a driver who caused the crash, a manufacturer, a property owner. If you have not sued the third party within one year after the comp carrier accepts the claim, the carrier can take over your right to sue. It must first give you 20 days' written notice. The carrier also holds a lien on any third-party recovery for the benefits it paid.
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.
Can I sue my employer for an on-the-job injury in South Carolina?
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, and Section 42-1-560 requires it to be commenced within one year of the carrier accepting liability or paying benefits.
South Carolina places no general cap on non-economic damages in ordinary injury cases. Pain, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment are not limited by statute the way they are in some neighboring states.
The cap in Section 15-32-220 applies to medical malpractice claims and does not travel to a collision or a fall. Government defendants are the exception: recovery is capped at $300,000 per person and $600,000 per occurrence, and punitive damages are not available.
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. If any defendant asks, the trial is split into two stages before the same jury.
The punitive cap is the greater of three times the compensatory award or $500,000 (adjusted each year for inflation). It rises where a defendant's conduct was driven by unreasonable financial gain known to management, or where the conduct could support a felony conviction. 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.
Which agency will have my report?
It depends on where the incident happened. Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach run separate departments; the Highway Patrol covers the highways and unincorporated county, and county fire rescue and the coroner each keep their own file.
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. Those numbers do not go far against a hospital stay.
Rideshare accidents are common in Myrtle Beach. Personal auto policies can exclude coverage when a driver is logged into the app. From the moment a rideshare driver logs in (also known as Phase 1), the rideshare company’s own insurance is the primary coverage, as required by South Carolina law (§§ 58-23-1625, -1630).
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 fills the gap when the at-fault policy is too small, is optional.
Here is the part worth knowing: an insurer must hold a signed form showing that underinsured coverage was offered and either accepted or rejected. If a new applicant does not return the signed offer form within 30 days, the insurer must add UM and UIM coverage at the policy's liability limits (§ 38-77-350(E)).
Out of state policies come up regularly in this county. The Horry County Coroner's Office has identified crash victims from other states, and a claim involving a driver 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 Section 15-3-530(5). Where an injury was not apparent at the time, Section 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.
Two variations shorten it. Claims against a state or local government agency must be filed in court within two years. The deadline becomes three years only if you first file a verified claim with the agency within one year of the injury.
If you have not sued the third party within one year after the comp carrier accepts the claim, the carrier can take over your right to sue after giving you 20 days’ written notice. The carrier also holds a lien on any third-party recovery for the benefits it paid.
Claims by children run longer. South Carolina extends filing deadlines for injured children (§ 15-3-40), but courts do not agree on how to calculate the extension. Treat the earliest possible date as your deadline. A parent does not have to wait, and waiting costs evidence even where it does not cost the deadline.
Horry County has more responding agencies along one corridor than most South Carolina markets, and the answer determines where the record lives.
Myrtle Beach Police Department investigates inside Myrtle Beach city limits. North Myrtle Beach Police Department is a separate agency covering that city. The South Carolina Highway Patrol investigates on the highways and in the unincorporated county. Horry County Fire Rescue responds and generates its own run reports, and the Horry County Coroner's Office confirms fatalities and maintains a separate file including cause of death.
A request sent to the wrong agency returns nothing, and the delay can cost weeks. A fire rescue run report is often the earliest clinical description of a person's condition, which matters when an insurer later argues an injury developed afterward.
One statutory point is worth knowing before anyone relies too heavily on the report itself. Under Section 56-5-1290, the accident reports drivers and owners are required to file may not be used as evidence of the negligence or due care of either party at trial. Officers may refer to them to refresh recollection. The report is where an investigation starts rather than where liability is decided.
A Myrtle Beach injury suit is filed in the Court of Common Pleas, which sits in the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. The Horry County Courthouse is at 1301 Second Avenue in Conway, and the Clerk of Court can be reached at (843) 915-5080, with a second office at 9630 Scipio Lane in Myrtle Beach reachable at (843) 915-5082.
Conway is the county seat, and Myrtle Beach is the largest community, so the courthouse is not in the city where most claims arise. Magistrate courts can hear injury claims only up to $7,500. Larger claims go to the Court of Common Pleas. People occasionally lose time by filing a larger claim in magistrate court.
Seriously injured people are usually taken to Grand Strand Medical Center (809 82nd Pkwy, Myrtle Beach), an adult Level I and pediatric Level II trauma center. Conway Medical Center (300 Singleton Ridge Rd) is an adult Level III trauma center. Treatment close to home is an advantage in assembling a claim, since records come from a single in-state institution rather than across a state line.
Three years from the date of injury under S.C. Code Section 15-3-530(5). For a wrongful death claim, the three years run from the date of death. 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.
Not in ordinary injury cases. The statutory cap on non-economic damages applies to medical malpractice claims only.
In South Carolina, where the injury occurred, under South Carolina deadlines. You do not need to be a resident to bring the claim.
Nothing. Personal injury consultations are free, and the firm works on a contingency basis, so clients pay nothing unless they recover.
The Arndt Law Firm builds Horry County injury claims around the two questions that decide them: what share of the fault a jury would assign, and which policies are actually available to pay. That means identifying every potentially responsible party early, before a defendant places one on a verdict form, and reading the insurance file closely enough to find coverage the policyholder did not know existed.
The firm's work in this county covers vehicle collisions, property and premises claims, dog attacks, and catastrophic injuries, filed in the Court of Common Pleas in Conway. Attorney Jonathan S. Arndt has been licensed in South Carolina since 2018 and reviews the claims the firm takes.
Having a Horry County claim looked at costs nothing, and the fee is taken from a recovery rather than billed. You can reach the firm through the contact page. The evidence a fault case depends on, meaning scene conditions, vehicle positions, and video held on a retention cycle, fades a good deal sooner than the three-year deadline does.
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.
