Property owners or operators can be held responsible for injuries occurring on their property. Depending on the nature of the property and the legal classification of the person who is injured, there are different levels of responsibility and liability. Injuries can range from slips and falls to swimming pool accidents, animal attacks, and more.  

South Carolina law divides a visitor into three classes: invitees, licensees, and trespassers.    

Invitees are owed the highest level of care as this category refers to customers at a retail establishment such as a store or restaurant. The owner/operator must maintain a safe environment to prevent injuries and can be held to the standard of using reasonable measures to ensure their property is safe. The owner/operator can also be held liable if they know of a dangerous situation but didn't take necessary precautions. 

Licensees are generally social guests, perhaps those you’ve invited to your home for dinner. Licensees are owed a lower duty of care. For instance, if the homeowner knows of danger, they must alert any social guests. Say a handrail on the stairway is loose. The guests must be warned, but the rail does not necessarily need to be fixed.   

Trespassers are the third category. They have no right to be warned or protected. If someone trespasses, they are generally doing so at their own risk. The exception is children who stray onto your property. 

When it comes to children, a legal principle known as the attractive nuisance doctrine comes into focus. Children can be attracted to your property and become injured because they see something they want to explore.   

You must take steps to mitigate the danger to children from any “attractive nuisance” you have. Fence things off or make them inaccessible. 

In a premises liability situation, the owner/operator obviously has an obligation to maintain a safe environment and warn people of any dangers. However, guests on a property do have an obligation to act in a proper way. If a shopper decides to jump from one level of an escalator to another and is injured, the store owner/operator would not likely be responsible for irrational behavior leading to injury. 

• To prevail in a premises liability case, you will need to show that:  
• There was a dangerous condition on someone else’s property.  
• The property owner (or whoever was in charge) was negligent.  
• As a result, you were injured or suffered property damage. 

It is vital to speak with a reliable personal injury attorney to get the assistance you need.

In any insurance claim or legal action in South Carolina, you need to be aware that the state relies on the modified comparative negligence standard. In a car accident, both drivers may share some of the fault for what happened. If you’re rear-ended, but your brake lights didn’t work to warn the other driver, you could be assigned part of the fault. Likewise, if you slip and fall in a store because you’re busy reading text messages on your phone and couldn’t see an object that fell in front of you, you could also be assigned part of the fault. g 

Modified comparative negligence means that you cannot obtain compensation from the other party if your fault is more than 50 percent, which is why it is often called “the 51 percent rule.” As a practical matter, say you are assigned 30 percent of the fault, your claim or lawsuit for $50,000 would reduce by 30 percent, and you’d get $35,000.