What You Need to Know About Worker's Compensation in South Carolina

South Carolina Worker’s Compensation Statutes

The first thing that you might not know about worker’s compensation law is A, it is a creature of statute. In other words, it is something that the State of South Carolina has entirely made separate and apart from regular tort law. In that respect one of the main differences between when you’re injured on the job which is a worker’s compensation claim is that there is no component for pain and suffering.

In your typical tort case, i.e. a car accident or slip and fall or something along those lines, something that the jury and/or judge is always going to take into consideration is the pain and suffering component of the injury that you suffered.

With regard to a worker’s compensation claim, there is no pain and suffering component. So in that respect, it’s quite different. It’s really more a matter of just actual computation based on what the statute says your particular body part is worth. That multiplied times whatever your actual hourly wage was in the time that you were actually injured.

South Carolina is a No Fault System in Worker’s Compensation Cases

The second thing that you need to know about worker’s compensation is that it’s in fact a no-fault system and in that respect, it doesn’t matter whether your employer or a third party was at fault for you being injured while you were on the job.

All that matters is that you were actually injured and you can prove it and that it happened in the scope of your employment. The reason why that’s important is because quite honestly that’s one of the primary focuses of any good defense attorney who is working your worker’s compensation claim.

They’re going to try and make it so that whatever happened, it didn’t happen in the scope of your employment. Maybe you were horsing around is the technical term, playing, and somehow you injured yourself in that respect or you were on a smoke break or something along those lines and you fell and you injured yourself that way.

These are ways that you can actually keep a claim from or make a claim so that it’s actually denied by the Workers Compensation Commission and ultimately you can keep a plaintiff on the outside looking in.

As I said before, it’s a creature of statute, something that was created in the 20th century. It used to be that you would actually bring a claim against your employer, just as you would against any other potential defendant but they kind of carved out a little niche in tort law. They made it no fault. They made it so that it’s – there’s no pain and suffering component and they made it so that it’s essentially a computation that’s based on values that are determined by the legislature and periodically updated as is necessary with your cost of living and your inflation considerations.

At the Hartman Law Firm in North Charleston, we have the ability to help with your worker’s compensation claim. Work injuries can have a devastating effect on your life but, fortunately, a South Carolina worker’s compensation attorney is here to help. To schedule a free consultation, please call 843-300-7600 today.