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An injury of any kind throws a wrench into your life.
Medical bills pile up…
Work is missed…
Your life is on hold…
A catastrophic injury goes even further and adds pain, suffering, disappointment, and fear for the future into the mix. Catastrophic injuries are serious injuries that permanently alter a person’s life.
These types of injuries often result in:
If you’ve suffered a life-altering injury due to someone else’s negligence or intentional acts, you don’t have to navigate the tough road ahead on your own.
A Greenville Personal Injury Lawyer can help you get the financial compensation you’re entitled to and ensure justice is served.
Defining an injury as catastrophic is sometimes challenging to do. Is a broken arm considered a catastrophic injury? What about an illness caused by someone else’s negligence? While proving your injury is life-altering may be challenging, some types of injuries and levels of severity almost always fall under the catastrophic category.
| Severe Bone Breaks | Visual Impairment |
| Head Injuries | Hearing Impairment |
| Neck Injuries | Dismemberment |
| Organ Damage | Spinal Cord Injuries |
| Severe Burns | Brain Injuries |
| Disfigurement | Paralysis |
| Chronic Illness | Wrongful Death |
Speak with a personal injury law firm with extensive expertise in South Carolina civil law. Personal injury attorneys can determine if your injury is catastrophic and could result in a substantial settlement.
While any incident can quickly result in catastrophic injury, some incidents often result in significant injury due to the exposed vulnerability, heightened risk, or severe impact involved in the event.
These incidents include:
While these incidents are examples of where catastrophic injuries commonly occur, many scenarios—like slip and falls, assault, or toxic chemical exposure—could easily lead to extensive bodily damage.
In any personal injury claim, there are a few different types of damages that the injured party can recover. Different categories of damages break compensation down into compensatory items, items that are not easily calculated, and exemplary compensation based on the severity of the at-fault party’s wrongdoing. The difference between standard personal injury cases and those of catastrophic injuries is that the compensation for damages in all categories tends to be exponentially higher for catastrophic injury cases.
Also called “compensatory damages,” economic damages directly reimburse the injured person for the monetary losses brought on by their injury. These include repayment for medical expenses, property damage, and lost wages due to the injury. Economic damages are easily proven with documents like medical bills, repair estimates, and employment records.
Non-economic damages are a bit harder to prove. They include “unseen” damage to the injured person’s life, including:
While difficult to prove in most standard personal injury cases, the courts tend to award damages that are non-economic more often in catastrophic injury cases.
When the at-fault party’s behavior in a personal injury case is particularly appalling, the courts may award punitive damages. The goal here is to punish the at-fault party and discourage the public from acting similarly. Punitive damages are typically reserved when the wrongdoer acted with extreme recklessness or displayed gross negligence.
Even though catastrophic injuries tend to get the highest settlements among personal injury claims, some factors could reduce the amount of damages you can recover.
South Carolina personal injury law limits the maximum compensation you can recover for specific damages in personal injury cases. These damage caps help prevent excessive lawsuit payouts and insurance costs from becoming unaffordable.
Punitive damage limits in South Carolina mandate that exemplary damages cannot exceed three times the amount of economic damages awarded.
Medical malpractice damage limits for non-economic damages are set at $350,000 for each plaintiff when the claim is brought against one health care provider.
The limit for cases involving multiple providers is $350,000 per provider, and the total compensation for all providers is limited to $1.05 million. In South Carolina, there is no set limit on economic damages for any case, and there are no limits on non-economic damages for cases outside medical malpractice.
One notable way your settlement could be significantly reduced is South Carolina’s use of a Comparative Negligence model. This model assigns a percentage of fault to each party, and the party with the higher responsibility rate must only pay the respective percentage of the awarded settlement. If a jury awards a $100,000 settlement for your case, but you were assigned 30% of the fault, you will only receive $70,000 in damages.
South Carolina law prohibits employees from filing a personal injury lawsuit against their employer. Instead, the worker can file a workers’ compensation claim to recover damages.
Workers’ compensation only covers economic damages, which include:
In cases of catastrophic work injuries, workers’ compensation sometimes awards lifetime income benefits if the injury results in a permanent disability that prevents the injured person from working in the future.
Navigating the process for compensation after serious injuries is stressful, emotional, and complex, so legal representation is crucial. An expert legal team of Greenville Catastrophic Injury Attorneys can walk you through the legal process and see that you get every penny of compensation you deserve.
(which means we’re in this fight together)
Let’s face it — you have questions.
A statute of limitations prevents you from filing a lawsuit against a negligent party after a specific time. In South Carolina, you must file personal injury claims within three years of the injury.
In South Carolina, pain and suffering has been determined to be a type of damage that a specified formula cannot define. In South Carolina courts, the jury will decide on the amount of compensation for pain and suffering and will base the decision on the severity of the injury, the length of the recovery period, and whether a permanent disability is likely.
Armada Law and our partners have the experience to represent you in any case. We represent clients who are involved in auto accidents, personal injury claims, and product liability.
Let us take you from victim to victory.
