After a pedestrian accident, you may be dealing with devastating injuries, while insurers stop at nothing to avoid paying you. They’ll attempt to shift blame onto you by arguing that you were distracted by your phone or jaywalking, even when the driver’s negligence caused the accident.
South Carolina’s “modified comparative negligence” law gives them a tool to reduce or deny your settlement. If insurers can claim you were 51% or more at fault, they can avoid paying anything at all. Even if they assign a smaller share of fault to you by misinterpreting evidence, it reduces your compensation and leaves you with significant financial burdens.
At Auger & Auger Accident and Injury Lawyers, we handle these cases because we know how insurers misuse these laws to shift blame and avoid responsibility, as well as the unique risks injured pedestrians face when they suffer serious injuries with long-term consequences. With decades of experience blocking insurer strategies, our pedestrian accident lawyers in Mount Pleasant are in the ideal position to handle your entire claim.
Our Mount Pleasant personal injury lawyers collect evidence independently from insurance adjusters and may even work with accident reconstruction specialists to counter their blame-shifting tactics. With the A&A Zero Fee Guarantee™, you can get started with no upfront costs, and you’ll only pay if we win your case. Call us today for a free consultation.
Why Choose Auger & Auger for Your Pedestrian Accident Case?
Insurance companies make as much use of South Carolina’s modified comparative negligence law as possible to reduce or deny claims after a pedestrian accident. They try to shift as much blame as possible onto you to limit their liability, a tactic that can drastically reduce the value of your settlement or eliminate your compensation entirely.
Fighting back against these strategies requires experience and insight into how insurers operate, which is exactly what our Mount Pleasant pedestrian accident attorneys bring to every case. We know how insurers twist incomplete statements and other evidence to imply fault where it doesn’t belong, and we’ve developed a proven process to counter these blame-shifting tactics.
Since 1995, we’ve been helping injured pedestrians overcome these obstacles. We’ve recovered more than $100 million for injury victims and maintained a 99.5% success rate in the cases we’ve handled. We challenge any attempts to misrepresent the facts by:
- Conducting an investigation independently of insurance companies to prevent them from omitting or skewing evidence.
- Gathering surveillance footage to verify events.
- Interviewing eyewitnesses to support your version of the accident.
- Analyzing police reports for inaccuracies or gaps.
- Consulting accident reconstruction specialists to prove the driver’s negligence.
Our dedication to your best interests doesn’t stop at the claims process; we provide client-centered, compassionate services every step of the way so that you never feel alone.
Modified Comparative Negligence and How Insurers Push Fault Onto Pedestrians
In pedestrian accident cases, insurers use laws that apply to pedestrians, such as those regarding right of way, to push claimants to or past the 51% threshold, knowing that crossing it means they owe you nothing.
For example, pedestrians crossing outside of a marked or unmarked crosswalk are required to yield the right of way to vehicles under South Carolina Code Section 56-5-3150. However, under South Carolina Code Section 56-5-3230, drivers must exercise due care to avoid hitting pedestrians at all times, including when they are jaywalking.
This leaves plenty of room for insurers to twist circumstances or ignore evidence that fully explains the situation, such as the driver’s recklessness or speed at the time of the collision.
How Our Mount Pleasant Pedestrian Accident Attorneys Refocus Fault Determination
When insurers manipulate fault, selectively interpreting pedestrian laws and misrepresenting the facts, our Mount Pleasant pedestrian accident lawyers know how to challenge them. We get ahead of insurers early in the process to preserve evidence and gather it ourselves.
We protect your claim with decades of experience. Our attorneys:
- Conduct thorough investigations to prove where and how the at-fault driver failed in their duty of care.
- Disprove victim-blaming arguments by reconstructing the accident and analyzing evidence like surveillance footage and eyewitness testimony.
- Demonstrate how driver negligence caused your injuries and the extent of your current and future losses.
Once we address insurer blame-shifting tactics, we will be ready to face them head-on in settlement negotiations or in trial. We will file a personal injury lawsuit to seek the compensation you are owed if the liable party refuses to make a fair settlement offer.
Act 42 and How Insurers Shift Fault to Nonparties
In addition to targeting you directly, insurers also use Tort Reform and Liquor Liability Act (Act 42) to shift blame onto nonparties, who are individuals or entities not named in the case, and argue that they contributed to the accident.
This updated law, effective as of January 2026, helps insurers dispute the liability of their policyholder, the at-fault driver. If they can assign some portion of the fault to others, they reduce their own financial responsibility.
For example, insurers will argue:
- The condition of the roadway contributed to the crash (e.g., misplaced construction signs or debris on the road), and therefore, a construction company is liable.
- A third party, such as another driver or pedestrian who is not part of the case, influenced the accident.
- A business or property owner in the area created hazards that contributed to the collision.
They aim to complicate your case, forcing you to defend against a broader range of unfounded disputes that get them off the hook if they can argue they are less than 50% at fault.
How Our Pedestrian Accident Injury Attorneys Fight Back
We fight back against blame-shifting strategies under Act 42 by:
- Issuing demand letters and subpoenas so that we can preserve any footage or data that proves driver negligence.
- Challenging speculative evidence, such as vague references to road conditions or hypothetical actions by others, to prevent insurers from weakening your claim.
- Verifying the accuracy of evidence, such as police reports, if you did not get a chance to give a statement due to serious injuries.
The combination of these laws puts your compensation at constant risk, requiring a legal team that knows how to fight these targeted, technical attacks.
Call Auger & Auger Today for Help From Our Mount Pleasant Pedestrian Accident Lawyers
After a pedestrian accident, dealing with insurers and the legal process can be overwhelming, but you don’t have to face it alone. At Auger & Auger, we handle every aspect of your claim and deal directly with the insurance companies. You won’t have to worry about blame-shifting tactics or South Carolina’s legal system; we take care of it all.
With our A&A Zero Fee Guarantee™, there are no upfront costs, and you won’t pay us a dime unless we recover compensation for you. Call us today for a free consultation, and let us fight to protect your claim.
