Premises Liability Lawyers in Summerville

Falling merchandise and overhead objects follow the created-hazard or notice test from Wintersteen v. Food Lion and Garvin v. Bi-Lo. Broken stairs and loose railings raise the same questions of who made the defect and who knew of it, plus the open and obvious rule in Restatement Section 343A. Lighting failures can land under three different rules. Attacks on business property follow the Bass balancing test. Injuries on land a public body controls follow the South Carolina Tort Claims Act. Children who wander onto land follow Restatement Section 339, which the Supreme Court adopted in 2007.

In Jackson v. Swordfish Investments, a 2005 case, a gunman shot a patron inside a nightclub leased in a Columbia shopping center. Its landlord had arranged common-area security, then dropped it once the nightclub stopped paying. Because the landlord did not control the club's interior, the Supreme Court found no duty, leaving open the question for areas a landlord does control. Frost Law Group can ask for the lease and any management or maintenance contract to learn who ran the exact spot.

In O'Leary-Payne, a Hilton Head shopping center accused a woman who tripped over a metal rod of leaning on that doctrine. The Court of Appeals disagreed in 2006. She had never argued that her injury alone proved negligence. She proved it with photographs and testimony about the rod's height and location. For a falling object, the matching proof is the item's weight, its position, how it was secured and what set it moving.

Garvin v. Bi-Lo, a 2001 Supreme Court decision, involved canned goods that toppled from a tall stack onto a shopper. The claim failed without proof of defective stacking or proof the store knew the stack had grown unstable. Wintersteen also refused to make a store liable just because its display method made falls foreseeable. Useful records include the stocking schedule, who built the display, any written display instructions and earlier complaints. Frost Law Group applies the same notice rule to spills and wet floors in its retail slip and fall claims.

In 1999, Gerald Bass was a guest at an Orangeburg motel run by Gopal, Inc., a Super 8 franchisee. Starting around 10 PM on September 28, a man knocked on his door three times. After the third knock, his roommate opened the door without looking, and both men stepped outside. The man demanded money, shot Bass in the leg and fled. The circuit court granted summary judgment to Gopal, ending the case before trial, and the Supreme Court affirmed.

Bass splits the owner's duty into two questions. First, was the crime foreseeable? Second, given that risk, which security measures made economic sense, and did the owner fall short of them? Bass himself cleared the first question and failed the second. A claim that answers only one question tends to end the same way. Both questions call for their own evidence.

Was the Attack Foreseeable at That Address?

Prior crimes on the property weigh heavily under Bass. Their absence, though, "does not foreclose the duty to provide some level of security if other factors support a heightened risk." The Court quoted a California decision warning that a landowner "should not get one free assault" before facing liability. Evidence can come from the property, the surrounding area and the owner's own knowledge.

Crime Records and Forecasts for the Property

Bass had no report of earlier crimes at the motel. A software change had erased the local public safety department's records from before 2000. He relied instead on a crime forecasting report rating the motel's risk of crimes against persons at 3.5 times the national average. The Court held that enough to show some foreseeability, while a countywide crime rate alone would not be. Frost Law Group can ask early for incident data at the exact address, whether the Summerville Police Department on North Cedar Street or another agency holds it.

Warnings the Owner Heard Before the Attack

Lord v. D & J Enterprises, decided in 2014, shows a second route. In 2008, a gunman shot a customer inside a Rock Hill check-cashing store. The shooting came during a string of York County armed robberies that mostly targeted small businesses. Before that day, the owner had followed the news coverage and warned employees that "there is a madman on the loose." The Supreme Court treated that testimony as evidence of foreseeability, even without any earlier crime at the store.

Were the Owner's Precautions Reasonable for the Risk?

Bass called hiring guards "no small burden" and hard to require without prior crimes on the premises. A business in a high-crime area may still need cheaper steps like extra lighting, fences, locks, cameras or staff training. Bass lost because his own security consultant said a first incident gave the motel too little data to justify cameras or guards. Lord's case went back for trial after her consultant explained why a guard at the entrance fit the known robbery spree. Whether a business did enough turns on evidence an attorney must gather.

Act No. 42 expanded the list of people whose fault a jury counts under Section 15-38-15, for claims that arise after January 1, 2026. Jurors may weigh the fault of some wrongdoers who are not parties. Subsection (H), though, bars adding a nonparty to the verdict form when that person acted willfully, wantonly, recklessly or intentionally. A deliberate attack generally fits that description. So a business usually cannot move a share of fault onto an absent attacker, though it may still argue the attacker caused the harm.

Naming the attacker as a defendant changes how the jury divides fault. Since July 1, 2005, the statute has generally capped what a defendant owes at its own percentage whenever jurors set its fault under 50%. Subsection (F) makes an intentional wrongdoer answerable for the full amount. Frost Law Group can weigh that choice with you, because it turns on facts no general rule settles.

Ruth Gazes rode an escalator at a Dillard's in Charleston County in 1995 with a bag looped around her wrist. Partway up, she was jerked left and pulled off her feet. A forensic engineer noted the escalator and a nearby column sat only five inches apart, a "pinch point" with no guard. An accident reconstructionist tied the marks on her bag to the handrail. The trial judge excluded their opinions on the cause and directed a verdict for the defense, taking the case from the jury. In 2000, the Court of Appeals reversed and ordered a new trial.

Section 6-9-10 of the South Carolina Code requires municipalities and counties to enforce building codes. Section 6-9-50 ties those codes to the latest International Code Council editions. The code in force when a staircase was built or altered can help show what a careful owner should have done. Its weight in a particular claim turns on the facts and the court's rulings. Repair invoices, tenant complaints and work orders can also show someone knew a railing was loose before it gave way.

Poor lighting appears in three kinds of claims, and each follows its own rule. Darkness on a step can cause a fall. In a parking area, it can invite a robbery. On a public street, a dead streetlight can hide a hole or a curb. Sorting the lighting problem into the right category comes first, because the proof and the defenses change with it.

A Dark Stairway and the Fall Itself

For a fall, darkness is part of the condition, and the usual notice questions apply. Owners often reply that the darkness was open and obvious. Under Section 343A, which South Carolina follows, an owner may still answer for an obvious danger when it should have anticipated the harm anyway. Your own caution counts as well. South Carolina reduces an award by your share of fault and bars recovery once that share passes 50%.

A Dim Parking Area and the Security Question

For a crime, lighting is one of the cheaper measures Bass listed for a business in a high-crime area. In Bass itself, the guest's own consultant rated the motel's lighting adequate. At apartments, Wright held that lighting and shrubbery choices alone did not create a security duty. The same dim lot may be judged one way at a store and another way at an apartment complex.

A Streetlight Out on a Public Street

Item 15 of Section 15-78-60 covers an "illumination device" that is missing or broken, along with signs, signals and warning devices. The government answers only when the problem stayed uncorrected for an unreasonable time after actual or constructive notice. A dated report to whichever agency maintains the light can help prove that notice.

A handful of the 40 exceptions come up often after injuries on public land. Discretionary decisions fall under item 5, and claims based on a nuisance fall under item 7. For parks and playgrounds, item 16 requires actual notice of the defect. Two more exceptions often surprise people, because the same facts could support a claim against a private owner.

Inspections a Town Made or Skipped

Item 13 covers regulatory inspections, including a skipped inspection or a careless one. Suppose a building inspector approved a private building's stairway that later collapsed. The government generally does not answer for that inspection. The claim stays with the owner, builder or contractor responsible for the stairway.

Crimes Committed by People Who Are Not Employees

Item 20 covers "the criminal actions of third persons" and other acts by people who are not government employees. Under item 6, "the failure to provide the method of providing police or fire protection" also falls outside the Act. Together they can defeat a security claim against a public owner that might proceed against a private business under Bass. How they apply depends on the facts and on how courts read each item.

When notice decides a government claim, the notice must match the defect. In a 2012 Darlington County case, a college student stepped into a hole on a grassy corner the city owned. The parks director testified that trucks had cut that corner for years, leaving depressions his crews kept refilling. The Court of Appeals held that knowing about the corner-cutting was not notice of the particular hole. No one could say how long that hole had existed, so a jury would have had to guess.

A 2007 Charleston sidewalk case came out differently. Leaves partly covered that hole and cracks spread from it. A city official also said it had probably been that way a while. Photos showing wear, debris and cracks around a defect can supply the same kind of proof.

Under Section 15-78-110, suit against a government entity generally must come within two years of when the loss was or should have been discovered. That period grows to three years only if you first file a verified claim, meaning a sworn written claim, with the agency or political subdivision. Section 15-78-80(d) gives the agency one year from that discovery date to receive the claim.

Once a claim is filed, Section 15-78-90 bars suit until 180 days pass. The agency can end that wait sooner by disallowing the claim or rejecting a settlement offer. Under Section 15-78-80, 180 days of silence counts as a disallowance.

The suit names the agency or political subdivision, not the employee. Only a circuit court can hear it, in whichever county the act or omission happened. For the Dorchester County part of Summerville, circuit court sits at 5200 East Jim Bilton Boulevard, St. George. Section 15-78-120 limits any one person to $300,000 for a single occurrence and all claimants together to $600,000. It also bars punitive damages and prejudgment interest, and Frost Law Group can walk through these limits before you decide how to proceed.

International Paper owned a canal running 27 miles through Georgetown County to carry Pee Dee River water to its plant. In 1998, a ten-year-old boy crossed it on a drainage pipe. He went into the murky water holding a cast net and, tragically, drowned. The trial court directed a verdict on attractive nuisance, the older rule for hazards that draw children onto land, because the boys had come for a dirt jumping hill, not the canal. In Henson v. International Paper, the Supreme Court rejected that "property line" rule but still affirmed the result. It merged attractive nuisance and unguarded dangerous condition into one exception for children.

That exception follows Section 339 and covers artificial conditions, meaning things built or placed on the land. The owner must have reason to know children are likely to trespass there. It must also know, or have reason to know, of a condition posing an unreasonable risk of death or serious harm that children, because of their youth, would not recognize. The owner's benefit from the condition and the burden of removing it must be slight compared with that risk, and the owner must fail to use reasonable care. A claim over a pool, a machine or an open trench has to satisfy each point.

A child hurt at a public school or playground faces the Tort Claims Act's added rules. Item 25 covers the supervision, protection and control of any student, and it allows liability only for gross negligence. That is a much higher bar than the ordinary carelessness that decides most premises claims. Item 16 requires actual notice before a public entity answers for a playground defect. A written report of a broken slide or a loose swing chain can supply that notice.