Written by Jeff Chandler, South Carolina Personal Injury Attorney
Practicing in South Carolina since 1999
Last reviewed: Oct. 2026
If your health gets worse after medical treatment, you may wonder whether someone made a mistake.
Perhaps a diagnosis was delayed, or you needed another hospital stay after a medication error.
The question is whether the care you received fell below accepted medical standards and caused your injury.
To prove medical malpractice in South Carolina, you generally need evidence of a provider-patient relationship, the care that should have been provided, how the provider failed to meet that standard, and the injury that followed.
You also need to document the losses for which you seek compensation.
The South Carolina Supreme Court explains these requirements in Brouwer v. Sisters of Charity Providence Hospitals.
The burden is a preponderance of the evidence: the greater weight of the evidence must support your claim.
Who Was Responsible for Your Care?
A claim against a physician begins with the doctor-patient relationship.
Appointment records, treatment notes, and hospital records can help show who treated you and what care they provided.
If several providers were involved, their roles need to be examined individually.
A doctor who ordered a test, a physician who interpreted it, and someone who made treatment decisions may have had different responsibilities.
As Hoard v. Roper Hospital illustrates, the evidence must connect the negligence alleged against a particular provider to the injury.
Our article on what constitutes medical malpractice in South Carolina explains the basic legal requirements in more detail.
What Care Should You Have Received?
The “standard of care” is the legal term for what a reasonably prudent healthcare provider would have done in the same or similar circumstances.
That comparison is the basis of the malpractice definition in South Carolina Code § 15-79-110.
A qualified medical witness generally explains which practices and procedures applied to your treatment.
An opinion that another doctor would have preferred a different approach is not enough by itself.
The witness must explain the accepted professional standard, a distinction the Court of Appeals addressed in Guinan v. Tenet Healthsystems of Hilton Head.
Where Did the Treatment Fall Short?
Once the standard is established, the evidence needs to show how your care departed from it. A general complaint about poor treatment leaves that question unanswered.
Suppose, for example, a patient’s symptoms called for a diagnostic evaluation that the provider never ordered.
Proving a breach would require evidence that accepted care called for that evaluation and that the provider failed to obtain it. The outcome alone would not establish those facts.
You generally do not have to show that the provider intended to hurt you. In Ardis v. Sessions, the court rejected instructions that improperly suggested a patient had to prove a medical judgment was made in bad faith.
Did the Negligence Cause Your Injury?
A missed test or treatment error does not, by itself, prove that it caused the harm you suffered.
In a delayed-diagnosis case, for instance, the evidence also needs to address whether timely testing and treatment would probably have avoided the injury.
In Hoard v. Roper Hospital, the Supreme Court explained that medical opinion evidence must establish a meaningful connection between the negligence and the injury.
When medical opinions are the only evidence of causation, the testimony must establish, with reasonable certainty, that the injury most probably resulted from the negligence. Saying it might have happened that way is insufficient.
Records from before and after treatment can help separate the effects of your original illness from the harm attributed to negligent care.
What Has the Injury Cost You?
Additional treatment bills and missed paychecks help document the financial consequences of an injury.
Under South Carolina Code § 15-32-210, economic damages include medical expenses, rehabilitation costs, lost earnings, and reduced earning capacity.
Noneconomic damages include pain, suffering, physical impairment, and mental anguish.
If you are preparing to discuss a claim with an attorney, gather:
- Bills and receipts for additional treatment.
- Employment records showing missed work and lost income.
- Records describing ongoing medical needs and physical limitations.
- Notes explaining how the injury affects daily activities.
Organizing these records by date can make it easier to explain what changed after the injury.
Your attorney can then assess what additional evidence is needed to support the losses claimed.
Our article on medical malpractice settlements in South Carolina discusses how those losses affect a case’s potential value.
What Happens Before You File Suit?
South Carolina has procedures that generally must be completed before a medical malpractice lawsuit begins.
Under Section 15-79-125, a claimant generally files a Notice of Intent to File Suit along with a qualified medical witness’s affidavit. The parties must also participate in prelitigation mediation.
The affidavit must identify at least one negligent act or omission and its factual basis.
Section 15-36-100 sets out the witness qualifications and includes a common-knowledge exception for allegations that require no specialized learning to evaluate.
Whether that exception applies depends on the facts of the claim.
There is also a deadline to bring the case. Section 15-3-545 generally provides a three-year limitations period and a six-year outside limit, subject to statutory exceptions and tolling.
If you are unsure how much time you have, our guide to South Carolina’s medical malpractice filing deadlines explains the timing rules.
Talk With Chandler Law Firm About Your Medical Injury
You do not need to arrive at a consultation with every legal question answered.
If you believe medical treatment caused an injury, bring the records you have and explain what happened.
A review of your care and the available evidence is the starting point for deciding whether you can prove medical malpractice in South Carolina.
Chandler Law Firm handles medical malpractice cases. Call 843-448-4357 or contact Chandler Law Firm to request a free consultation.
About the Author
Jeff Chandler has practiced law in South Carolina since 1999. His practice includes workers’ compensation, personal injury, and medical malpractice matters. He represents injured individuals throughout South Carolina from Chandler Law Firm's Myrtle Beach and Charleston offices.
South Carolina Bar Admission: 1999
View Jeff Chandler's Attorney Profile →
Important Legal Information
This page provides general information about South Carolina law and is not intended as legal advice. Reading this page or contacting Chandler Law Firm does not by itself create an attorney-client relationship. The application of the law depends on the facts and circumstances of each case.
