At The Arndt Law Firm, we know that losing a loved one to someone else’s carelessness or wrongdoing is one of the hardest things a family can face. In our work with families across Summerville and the Lowcountry, we’ve seen how a wrongful death leaves not just emotional devastation, but also financial hardship and countless unanswered questions. Our team is here to help you find clarity, accountability, and the support you need as you begin to move forward.
We take a personal, hands-on approach to every wrongful death case. We start by listening to your story and answering your questions about South Carolina’s legal process. Our attorneys work quickly to secure the evidence and documentation needed to prove what happened and to identify every possible source of recovery, whether from a negligent driver, a property owner, an employer, or a product manufacturer.
We know how important it is to honor your loved one’s memory and to protect your family’s future. That means not only pursuing compensation for lost support, funeral expenses, and other concrete losses, but also making sure that the full impact of your loss, your grief, your suffering, and the changes to your life are recognized and valued in the claim.
If you’re dealing with the loss of a loved one in Summerville or anywhere in the Lowcountry, we invite you to reach out for a confidential, no-cost consultation. You can learn more about our experience and our approach by contacting us directly or visiting our site. We’re here to support your family every step of the way.
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 S.C. Code §§ 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.
Because Summerville straddles two counties, where a wrongful death case is filed depends on where the death occurred. A claim arising on the Dorchester County side is filed in the Court of Common Pleas for the First Judicial Circuit at the Dorchester County Courthouse, 5200 E. Jim Bilton Blvd. in St. George. A claim arising on the Charleston County side is filed in the Court of Common Pleas for the Ninth Judicial Circuit at the Charleston County Judicial Center, 100 Broad Street in Charleston. There is no Court of Common Pleas in Summerville itself.
Wrongful death can result from many kinds of negligence. Fatal motor vehicle crashes, including car, truck, and motorcycle collisions, are a common cause, as are pedestrian fatalities, and deaths 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.
If the death happened at work, South Carolina’s workers’ compensation act is generally the exclusive remedy against the employer (South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act, S.C. Code Ann. § 42-1-540 (2023)), and the family’s claim against the employer proceeds as a workers’ compensation death claim rather than a wrongful death suit. A wrongful death action can still be brought against a negligent third party, another driver, a property owner, an equipment manufacturer, under the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act, S.C. Code Ann. § 42-1-560 (2023), subject to the compensation carrier’s lien on the recovery.
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 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 is preserved by the South Carolina Survival Statute, S.C. Code Ann. § 15-5-90 (2023), and its deadline is not the same as the wrongful death deadline. The wrongful death claim runs three years from the date of death under the South Carolina Statute of Limitations, S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-530(6) (2023). The survival claim is the deceased person’s own injury claim and generally runs three years from the injury under South Carolina Statute of Limitations, S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-530(5) (2023). Where a person survived for a period before dying, the survival claim can run out first, which is why both deadlines should be identified early.
The two claims are typically brought together after a death caused by negligence, but court approval is required before any settlement becomes final. Any settlement of a wrongful death or survival claim in South Carolina must be approved by a court of probate, circuit, or federal, and the court also approves how the recovery is divided among the beneficiaries.
The claims 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. Pursuing both ensures that the full range of harm, both the family's loss and the deceased's own suffering, is addressed, and accounting for each is part of presenting the complete picture of what a wrongful death has caused.
The distinction between the two claims is not merely technical, because it can significantly affect the total recovery and how it is shared. 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 a death that was instantaneous may involve little or no survival component. Because the two claims compensate different losses and pass to different recipients, accounting for both is part of ensuring that nothing the law allows is left unaddressed. Handling them together, with attention to how each is valued and distributed, is part of presenting the complete picture of the harm a wrongful death has caused to both the family and the estate.
| 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 follows modified comparative negligence. A family can recover if the person who died was 50 percent or less at fault, with the award reduced by that percentage, and is barred from recovering if the person who died was 51 percent or more at fault. This rule comes from South Carolina case law, Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., 303 S.C. 243 (1991), rather than from a statute.
Where the at-fault driver had no insurance, or not enough of it to cover the loss, the family’s own auto coverage often matters. South Carolina requires uninsured motorist coverage on every auto policy (South Carolina Uninsured Motorist Statute, S.C. Code Ann. § 38-77-150 (2023)) and requires insurers to offer underinsured motorist coverage up to the insured’s liability limits. Both can apply to a fatal crash, and identifying every available policy early is part of valuing the claim.
The state’s 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. 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 but are deeply felt. 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.
South Carolina permits exemplary damages in wrongful death cases where the act was reckless, willful, or malicious, proven by clear and convincing evidence (S.C. Code Ann. § 15-51-40 (2023)). Punitive damages are capped at the greater of three times the compensatory award or $500,000, except where the defendant intended harm, was convicted of a felony related to the conduct, or acted while impaired (S.C. Code Ann. § 15-32-530). Deaths caused by drunk driving or reckless behavior may warrant punitive awards in addition to compensatory recovery. The specific value of a wrongful death claim depends on the unique circumstances and the family's loss, requiring careful consideration.
Claims against a government entity are also limited. South Carolina Tort Claims Act, S.C. Code Ann. § 15-78-120 (2023), caps recovery at $300,000 for a single claimant and $600,000 for all claims arising out of a single occurrence, and punitive damages and prejudgment interest are not available against a government entity.
Valuing the intangible losses in a wrongful death claim is among the most difficult and important parts of these cases, precisely because the loss does not come with a price tag. The companionship of a spouse, the guidance of a parent, the future a child would have had, none of these can 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, which is why a wrongful death claim is in part the work of telling the story of a life and a relationship. This is a responsibility handled with care, because it asks a grieving family to share what they have lost, and it is central to a claim that seeks to reflect the true magnitude of the harm rather than only its financial dimensions.
Claims against a government entity are also limited. The South Carolina Tort Claims Act caps recovery at $300,000 for a single claimant and $600,000 for all claims arising out of a single occurrence, and punitive damages and prejudgment interest are not available against a government entity. (South Carolina Tort Claims Act, S.C. Code Ann. § 15-78-120 (2023)).
Generally three years from the date of death under South Carolina Statute of Limitations, S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-530(6) (2023), which expressly begins to run upon the death. When a government entity is responsible, the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, S.C. Code Ann. §§ 15-78-80, 15-78-110 (2023), applies. Suit must generally be filed within two years of the date the loss was or should have been discovered. If a verified claim is filed with the responsible agency within one year, that deadline extends to three years. Identifying the applicable deadline early is important to protecting the claim.
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.
Fatal crashes in the Summerville area concentrate on I-26, where interstate speeds mix with heavy commercial truck traffic, and on the US-17A and US-78 corridors that carry local and commuter traffic through town.
In 2025, Dorchester County recorded 84 fatal and serious-injury crashes and Charleston County 304. Statewide, South Carolina recorded 946 traffic deaths in 2025, down from 1,198 in 2021, a 21 percent reduction and the lowest annual total in more than a decade, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety.
When a crash causes catastrophic injuries, the critically injured in the Summerville area are taken to Trident Medical Center in North Charleston, the area's Level II trauma center, with the most catastrophic cases going to MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston, the Lowcountry's only Level I trauma center, where, despite the best efforts of the trauma teams, some injuries prove fatal. 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 interstate and roads, is part of understanding the circumstances that bring families to these claims, addressed alongside the related vehicle claims on our Summerville car accident lawyer and Summerville truck accident lawyer pages.
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.
Generally three years from the date of death under South Carolina Statute of Limitations, S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-530(6) (2023), which expressly begins to run upon the death. When a government entity is responsible, the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, S.C. Code Ann. §§ 15-78-80, 15-78-110 (2023), applies. Suit must generally be filed within two years of the date the loss was or should have been discovered. If a verified claim is filed with the responsible agency within one year, that deadline extends to three years.
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.
The Arndt Law Firm handles every Summerville wrongful death case with care for the family and rigor in the work, 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.
Because attorney Arndt previously defended insurers and institutional clients, the firm understands how these claims are evaluated and contested, and it builds each case to hold the responsible parties accountable while handling the matter with the sensitivity a grieving family deserves.
If your family has lost a loved one to another party's negligence in Summerville or anywhere in the tri-county Lowcountry, you do not have to face the legal questions alone or act before you are ready, though preserving evidence and meeting deadlines does matter.
The consultation is free, wrongful death cases are handled on a contingency basis with no fee unless there is a recovery, and we can explain your family's rights at whatever pace is right for you. Reach out through our contact page when you are ready to discuss what happened, and see how these rules apply across the state on our South Carolina wrongful death page.
Last reviewed: June 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.
