What to Do After a Product Injury on Hilton Head
Get treated first. A family member can make sure the product is kept and handle most of the rest.
- Treatment. Call 911 and tell the ER exactly what the product did. Then stick with the plan your surgeons and therapists lay out.
- The product. If it's safe, don't throw it away, fix it, clean it or ship it back without legal advice. Swollen lithium packs and leaking fluids call for the fire department's advice first. Snap pictures from every angle and save the loose bits in a bag.
- Box, manual, receipt. Plus labels, warnings and the model and serial numbers. For a rental, keep the rental agreement.
- Pictures. Burns, cuts or fractures as they heal, plus the place the thing gave out.
- Reports. If the fire department, a deputy or a store manager came, ask how to get their report.
- What happened. How you were using it, how long it had been in use and anything strange you noticed before.
- Wait to sign or ship. Many people talk to a lawyer first.
Recall letter in the mail? Write the date on the envelope and keep it.
Products That Fail Around the Island
On Hilton Head and in Bluffton, product injuries can involve e-bikes and rental bikes whose brakes or batteries fail, golf carts that tip or lose steering, boat steering, throttle or fuel parts, grills and appliances in a rental house, pool equipment, and power tools on a job site. Salt air and summer heat are hard on equipment, and that can make it even more important to keep the product just as it was.
What Makes a Product Defective
South Carolina product liability claims commonly involve manufacturing defects, design defects, or inadequate warnings or instructions.2
- Manufacturing defect: something went wrong in making that particular unit.
- Design defect: the plan for the product, not one bad unit, is what made it unreasonably dangerous.
- Warnings or instructions: the product lacked what users needed to use it safely.
Depending on the facts, claims may proceed under strict liability, negligence or warranty theories.2 A business that regularly sells a product can be responsible when one it sold in a defective, unreasonably dangerous condition reaches the user without substantial change and injures them.1 For a design defect, the injured person generally must show a feasible alternative design that would have made it safer, considering cost, safety and how well it works.6
Want someone to look at your situation?
Talk with our team about what happened and ask the questions on your mind.
Time Limits
Most South Carolina personal injury lawsuits involving defective products must be filed within three years.3 Certain warranty claims and claims governed by other laws may have different deadlines. Opening an insurance claim, contacting the manufacturer or waiting for a recall generally does not stop the filing deadline.75 Claims involving government entities may have a shorter deadline.4
Talk With Us
When something you trusted breaks and hurts you, it's natural to wonder whether you did something wrong. Walk us through the e-bike, the grill or whatever it was, and the moment it failed.
We take cases across South Carolina, including Hilton Head, Bluffton and the rest of southern Beaufort County. Our office is on King Street in Charleston. The first conversation can happen by phone. See South Carolina product liability claims and, if there was a fire, burn injuries near Hilton Head.
Call and tell us what you still have of the product.
South Carolina Law on This
- In South Carolina, a business that regularly sells a product can be responsible when one it sold in a defective, unreasonably dangerous condition reaches a user or consumer without substantial change and injures them, even if it used all possible care and the user did not buy from it.1
- South Carolina product liability claims commonly involve manufacturing defects, design defects, or inadequate warnings or instructions. Depending on the facts, claims may proceed under strict liability, negligence or warranty theories, and manufacturers and other businesses in the product's distribution chain may be responsible.2
- Most personal injury claims in South Carolina must be filed within three years.3
- Claims against a South Carolina state or local government agency have their own filing deadline, which can be shorter, and there could be caps on damages under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act, depending on the facts of the case.4
- South Carolina's statute of limitations generally sets the deadline for filing a lawsuit in court. Simply opening a claim with an insurance company or negotiating with an insurance adjuster does not stop the statute of limitations from running.5
- To prove a product's design was defective in South Carolina, the injured person generally must show a feasible alternative design that would have made it safer, considering cost, safety and how well it works.6
- Most South Carolina personal injury lawsuits involving defective products must be filed within three years. Certain warranty claims and claims governed by other laws may have different deadlines. Opening an insurance claim, contacting the manufacturer or waiting for a recall generally does not stop the filing deadline.7
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an injury prove the e-bike was defective?
The bike came with our rental. I didn't buy it. Can I still bring a claim?
Possibly. A business that regularly sells a product can be responsible even if the user did not buy from it.1 A rider on a bike that came with the rental house is not shut out just because someone else paid for it.
The manufacturer wants to pick up the broken part. Should I let them?
Be careful. The product is often the key evidence, and once it's gone you may never examine it again. Get the request in writing, photograph everything, and many people talk to a lawyer before handing it over.
Can I wait to see if the company makes it right?
You can talk with them, but contacting the manufacturer or waiting for a recall generally does not stop the filing deadline.7 Read anything carefully before signing.
Sources
This page is general information about South Carolina law, not legal advice for your situation. Every case depends on its own facts.
