Right After a Job Site Injury
Treatment first. Someone from your crew or your family can pick up these tasks while doctors work on you.
- Get to the hospital. Call 911. Tell each doctor exactly how it happened on the site, and keep every follow-up.
- Tell the company. Let the foreman or superintendent know quickly, or have a relative call, and follow it with a text or email that shows the date.
- Pictures, if safe. When it can be done safely and lawfully, a coworker can photograph the scaffold, ladder, trench edge, rail or machine. Stay out of taped-off areas and leave equipment where it is.
- Names on the site. Your crew, the other trades working that day, the GC's superintendent, anybody running equipment.
- Keep damaged gear. Boots, harness, hard hat and tools stay as they are. Ask that key equipment and records be kept, not fixed or tossed.
- Pay records. Hang on to check stubs, time cards and anything the comp carrier mails you.
- Slow down on releases. Many workers talk to a lawyer before signing.
Building on the Grand Strand
Horry County keeps growing, with new subdivisions in Carolina Forest, Socastee, Longs and Little River, hotel and condo work along the oceanfront, and road crews on the main highways. Crews work at height, around heavy equipment and next to live traffic.
Workers' Comp Timing
Most on-the-job injuries in South Carolina go through workers' compensation, which has its own rules.1 Notice to the employer generally has to happen within 90 days, and the claim generally has to reach the Commission within two years.4 Occupational diseases and injuries that build over time may follow different timing rules.5 Reporting early beats waiting for the deadline.3
Want someone to look at your situation?
Talk with our team about what happened and ask the questions on your mind.
Claims Against Someone Besides Your Employer
Against a covered employer, workers' comp is generally the only remedy, with limited exceptions.6 A separate negligence or product claim may be possible against an outside party, such as the maker of a machine that failed.2
Every company on the site isn't automatically an outside party. A business that hires a subcontractor for work that's part of its own trade may count as a statutory employer and share the employer's protection.76 Who can be sued depends on how the companies are linked and what each was doing.
Most South Carolina injury lawsuits have three years, while comp claims generally have two.84 The three-year limit is for a lawsuit, and an insurance claim doesn't stop it.9 A claim against a state or local government entity generally has two years, or three with a qualifying verified claim, and damage limits may apply.1011
See our statewide construction injury page and workers' comp in Myrtle Beach.
Talk With Us
We want to hear what you were doing when you got hurt. A lot of people in the trades have spent years building skills that depend on their bodies, and that matters to us. If you hire us, the insurers can usually deal with us.
We take cases across South Carolina, including Myrtle Beach and the Grand Strand. Our office is on King Street in Charleston. The first conversation can happen by phone.
Tell us about the site, the companies on it and how you were hurt.
South Carolina Law on This
- Most injuries that happen on the job in South Carolina go through the workers' compensation system, which has its own rules, and usually limits suing your own employer.1
- In South Carolina, an employee injured at work may be able to receive workers' compensation benefits and also pursue a personal injury claim against a responsible third party, such as another driver. The workers' compensation insurer may have a right to reimbursement from any settlement or judgment. Special rules and deadlines apply when pursuing both claims.2
- An injured worker in South Carolina generally must tell the employer about a work accident right away, and no later than 90 days after it, to receive workers' compensation, unless an exception applies.3
- A South Carolina workers' compensation claim generally must be filed with the Workers' Compensation Commission within two years after the accident, or after a death it caused. Telling the employer does not count as filing. Occupational diseases and repetitive trauma follow different rules.4
- Different workers' compensation timing rules may apply to repetitive trauma injuries and occupational diseases that develop over time in South Carolina. The date a worker first experienced symptoms is not necessarily the date the filing deadline began.5
- Workers' compensation is generally the exclusive remedy against a covered South Carolina employer for a qualifying workplace injury, although limited exceptions exist. South Carolina's statutory-employer doctrine can extend that immunity to some contractors or other businesses, so they are not automatically third parties simply because they are not the worker's direct employer.6
- Under South Carolina workers' compensation law, a business that hires a subcontractor to perform work that is part of the business's own trade or operations may be considered a statutory employer. When this rule applies, the business can be responsible for workers' compensation benefits for the subcontractor's employees, even though it did not hire them directly.7
- Most personal injury claims in South Carolina must be filed within three years.8
- 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.9
- Lawsuits under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act generally must be filed within two years after the loss was or should have been discovered. A three-year deadline may apply if a qualifying verified claim was first filed under the Act.10
- 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.11
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I have three years for a construction injury?
Not for workers' comp. Comp has its own clock: notice to your employer generally within 90 days, and a filing with the Commission generally within two years.34 A suit against an outside company is different: most South Carolina injury suits have three years.8 Ask about every clock on the first call.
I don't work construction. I got hurt driving past a work zone on US-501. What then?
Sources
- S.C. Code § 42-1-540
- S.C. Code § 42-1-560
- S.C. Code § 42-15-20
- S.C. Code §§ 42-15-20 and 42-15-40
- S.C. Code § 42-15-40
- S.C. Code §§ 42-1-400, 42-1-540; Keene v. CNA Holdings, LLC, 436 S.C. 1, 870 S.E.2d 156 (2021)
- S.C. Code §§ 42-1-400 through 42-1-420; Keene v. CNA Holdings, LLC (S.C. 2021)
- S.C. Code § 15-3-530
- S.C. Code §§ 15-3-20 and 15-3-530
- S.C. Code §§ 15-78-80 and 15-78-110
- S.C. Code §§ 15-78-110 and 15-78-120
This page is general information about South Carolina law, not legal advice for your situation. Every case depends on its own facts.
