Charleston Personal Injury Lawyers

When you have been involved in an accident that has injured you contact a Charleston personal injury lawyer. Lawyers at the Steinberg Law Firm have the skills and experience in personal injury law and they will fight to obtain the compensation you deserve. If another person’s carelessness resulted in your injuries, you should not have to deal with all of the consequences of that injury without fair and equitable compensation.

Personal injury law is a wide niche in which our attorneys work closely with plaintiffs who have been injured in preventable accidents, such as:

• Car accidents
• Slip and fall injuries
• Workplace injuries
• Wrongful death
• Brain injuries
• Head, spine injuries
• Amputations/limb loss
• Disfigurement/scarring
• Dog bites
• Motorcycle accidents
• Premises liability
• Trucking accidents
• Nursing home abuse
• Defective/dangerous products

A personal injury typically involves a physical and/or emotional injury to the victim and/or damage to the victim’s property. One, or a combination, of the following actions, usually causes personal injury accidents:

• Someone’s intentional wrongful conduct
• A defective product
• Someone’s negligent, careless or reckless conduct
• An extremely hazardous activity or condition

If you have been a victim of someone else’s negligence, you have the right to recover compensation for any injuries you may have suffered. State common law and statutory law, as well as federal statutory law govern this right. A victim in a personal injury lawsuit is referred to as the “plaintiff” and the entity or individual that caused the accident is referred to as the “defendant.”

Negligence as defined by the court case Proctor v. Department of Health and Environmental Control, 2006 WL 706734 (S.C.App.) is the failure to use due care or reasonable care, which is that care which a reasonably careful person would use under like circumstances.

To recover compensation in Charleston for a personal injury negligence claim there are four elements that must be proved by the plaintiff. Those elements, enumerated in Adrade v. Johnson, 356 S.C. 238, 245, 588 S.E.2d 588, 592 (2003) are:

• A duty of care owed to the plaintiff by the defendant
• The defendant breached the duty of care
• The defendant’s breach of caused the plaintiff’s injuries
• The plaintiff’s injuries were reasonably foreseeable by the defendant and therefore the proximate or legal cause of the injuries

The plaintiff must prove the elements of a claim by a preponderance of the evidence or the greater weight of the evidence. In other words, the plaintiff must prove a claim by more that 50 percent. It is also important to note that in Charleston, the law recognizes contributory negligence. This is when a plaintiff’s negligence contributes to or causes, in whole or in part, the plaintiff’s injury. When a plaintiff’s negligence contributes to their injury, the law of comparative negligence kicks in. Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., 303 S.C. 243, 399 S.E.2d 783 (1991).

If a plaintiff’s negligence is greater than that of the defendant’s the plaintiff will not be successful in achieving compensation. However, if the plaintiff’s negligence is on par with the defendant’s negligence or is less than the defendants, then the victim/plaintiff’s compensation is reduced by the percentage of the assessed negligence. Put another way, if the plaintiff was 52 percent responsible for an accident, any compensation they may be awarded is reduced by 52 percent.

To find out how our experienced Charleston personal injury attorneys can fight for you and your family following a serious injury, call the Steinberg Law Firm, LLC, at 843-720-2800 for a FREE case review. We serve Charleston, Goose Creek, Summerville and surrounding areas.