After a car accident in South Carolina, the strain sometimes continues long after the dust settles on the accident and the injury victim deals with painful medical procedures, lengthy recovery time, and the stress of the car accident claim process. South Carolina is a fault-based state with a modified comparative negligence system that requires an injury victim to file a claim against an at-fault party’s insurance.
This is typically the other driver in a collision, but sometimes another party, like a negligent road maintenance agency. Understanding liability and the fault-based insurance laws in South Carolina helps a car accident victim understand what to expect.
How Does Liability Work in Fault-Based Car Accident Laws?
Drivers have a legal obligation to follow traffic laws, avoid distractions, and take all reasonable measures to avoid causing an accident while sharing the road with others. When a driver violates that legal duty of reasonable care through negligence, and the violation causes an injury with significant damages, the negligent party is liable for the injury victim’s damages, like medical expenses, lost wages, and compensation for pain and suffering.
Both drivers’ insurance companies investigate the accident by reading the police report to determine the cause and then assigning a percentage of fault to each driver.
When a Columbia car accident attorney represents an injury victim, they investigate all aspects of the accident to document the other driver’s liability and protect their client’s best interests so the insurance company does not assign them an undue percentage of fault.
Understanding South Carolina’s Modified Comparative Negligence Accident Laws
In a modified comparative negligence system, a car accident victim can recover compensation for their damages even if they contributed to the cause of the accident as long as they are less than 50% at fault. This type of fault-based insurance law benefits an accident victim if they were partly at fault by allowing them to recover their damages minus their percentage of fault.
For example, if one driver runs a red light and has a T-bone collision with another car in the intersection, it might seem that the driver who ran through the light is 100% at fault. But what if the insurance company learns that the other driver was speeding, and the accident might not have happened if the other driver had adhered to the speed limit? Under this scenario, the insurance company could assign 25% of the fault to the speeding driver. If that driver’s compensation claim amounts to $100,000, they could still recover $75,000. The driver who ran the red light cannot recover compensation because they are more than 50% at fault.
How Can a South Carolina Car Accident Lawyer Help?
Unfortunately, the state’s fault-based insurance laws incentivize insurance companies to assign fault to an injury victim with a substantial claim to minimize the amount they have to pay on the claim. They can deny the claim completely by shifting liability to the injury victim over 50%. For this reason, it’s advantageous for a car accident injury victim to hire an attorney to protect their best interests throughout the process of their claim. Call the injury lawyers in Columbia at Marc Brown Law Firm to navigate your claim from start to finish.