What Columbia Property Owners Owe You
- Since Henson v. International Paper Co. in 2007, South Carolina has judged injuries to trespassing children under Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339 rather than older attractive nuisance labels.
- Whether a Columbia apartment complex or motel owed better locks, lighting, or guards depends on a balancing test from Bass v. Gopal that weighs how foreseeable the crime was.
- A visitor who was invited for the owner’s business is owed inspection for hidden hazards, while a social guest is owed only warnings about dangers the host already knows about.
- Landlords must keep common areas such as stairways, walkways, and laundry rooms reasonably safe under § 27-40-440 of the South Carolina Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.
- Property run by the City of Columbia, Richland County, or a state university falls under the Tort Claims Act, which bars punitive damages and generally gives two years to sue.
A collapsed porch rail, an unlit stairwell, a parking lot with no working security, a pool with no fence. When property owners cut corners, visitors get hurt, and South Carolina law decides these cases on two questions: what duty did the owner owe you, and what did the owner know, or should have known, about the hazard? A Columbia premises liability lawyer at Shelly Leeke Law Firm builds each case around inspection records, incident histories, maintenance logs, and code violations, the proof of what the owner knew.
Our Columbia office is at 1111 Laurel Street, Columbia, SC 29201, and we have represented injured South Carolinians since 2007. We handle premises liability claims from Richland County, Lexington County, and the surrounding Midlands, including injuries at apartment complexes, stores, hotels, private homes, and public property. To talk through what happened and who may be responsible, schedule a free consultation with our team.
What the Owner Owed You Depends on Why You Were There
South Carolina premises law sorts visitors into categories, and the duty the owner owed you follows the category. The same broken step can lead to a strong claim for a paying customer and a weak one for someone who wandered in uninvited.
Invitees: customers and guests invited for the owner’s benefit
Invitees are owed the highest duty: reasonable care to keep the property safe, including a duty to inspect for hazards the owner does not yet know about and to fix them or warn of them. Shoppers, restaurant and bar patrons, hotel guests, and people using the common areas of an apartment complex typically qualify. This is the category most commercial premises liability claims in Columbia fall into, and it is why a store or landlord’s inspection habits matter so much to the outcome.
Licensees: social guests and others present with permission
A social guest at a friend’s house is usually a licensee. The owner must use reasonable care not to injure the guest through the owner’s own activities and must warn about dangerous conditions the owner knows about and the guest is unlikely to discover. The owner does not have to inspect for unknown hazards, but cannot stay silent about known ones, such as a rotten deck board, a loose stair tread, or a dog with a history of biting.
Trespassers: present without permission
An adult trespasser is generally owed only the duty not to be injured willfully or wantonly. Children are the major exception. In Henson v. International Paper Co. (2007), the South Carolina Supreme Court adopted Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339 in place of the older attractive nuisance and unguarded dangerous condition rules. An owner can be liable to a trespassing child for an artificial condition, such as an unfenced pool, when:
- the owner knows or has reason to know children are likely to trespass there;
- the condition poses an unreasonable risk of death or serious injury to children;
- the children, because of their age, do not discover the condition or realize the risk;
- the cost of removing the danger is slight compared with the risk to children; and
- the owner fails to use reasonable care to remove the danger or otherwise protect them.
The Henson court also noted that recovery generally should not be allowed where the condition was fenced in a way that would reasonably keep children out, so whether a pool or construction site was properly fenced and gated often decides these cases. Our Columbia child injury lawyers handle them together with the special rules that apply when a minor is hurt.
The Heart of the Case: What the Owner Knew, or Should Have Known
Most premises cases are won or lost on notice. In general you must show the owner created the hazard, knew about it (actual notice), or that it existed long enough, or recurred often enough, that a reasonable owner would have found and fixed it (constructive notice). That is why evidence moves these cases: inspection and cleaning logs, maintenance requests, prior incident reports, surveillance footage, police call histories, and code-violation records. It is also why acting fast matters, because logs get overwritten, video is recorded over, and hazards get quietly repaired once someone has been hurt.
Premises Liability Cases We Handle
Property injuries in Columbia go well beyond falls. The cases we handle include:
- Slip, trip, and fall hazards such as wet floors, broken stairs, and uneven pavement. Our Columbia slip and fall lawyers cover those cases in depth, while this page covers the broader property-liability framework.
- Negligent security: assaults in parking lots, apartment complexes, motels, and bars where lighting, locks, gates, or guards were inadequate despite known crime risks.
- Porch, deck, and railing collapses and other structural failures.
- Fires and carbon monoxide exposure linked to code violations or poor maintenance.
- Elevator and escalator malfunctions.
- Swimming pool injuries and child drownings, including claims under the child trespasser rule.
- Falling merchandise in stores and warehouses.
- Landlord claims for unsafe common areas and failures to repair.
Negligent Security in Columbia
A property owner is not an insurer against every crime, but a business owes its invitees reasonable action against foreseeable harm. In Bass v. Gopal, Inc. (2011), the South Carolina Supreme Court adopted a balancing approach: the more foreseeable the crime, the more security the owner may be expected to provide. Prior similar incidents on the property are an important factor, though not the only one, and expert testimony often shows whether the lighting, locks, cameras, or guards were reasonable. These claims arise at apartment complexes near the University of South Carolina, motels along the interstates, and bars and parking garages downtown.
Dog Bites on Someone’s Property
Dog attacks follow their own statute rather than the visitor categories. Under S.C. Code § 47-3-110, a dog’s owner or keeper is liable when the dog bites or attacks someone who is in a public place or lawfully on private property, including the owner’s own property, unless the person provoked or harassed the dog. A landlord or property manager who knew of a dangerous dog may also face a premises claim. Our Columbia dog bite lawyers handle these cases in detail.
Who Can Be Held Liable?
More than one party may share responsibility for the same unsafe condition, and every one of them may carry separate insurance. Depending on who controlled the area, a claim may involve:
- Property owners, residential and commercial.
- Businesses leasing the space where you were hurt.
- Landlords and property-management companies, for common areas and known defects.
- Event operators and security contractors.
- Manufacturers, when a defective railing, pool drain, or elevator part caused the harm, which can support a product liability claim.
- Government entities, for injuries on public property.
Landlord Duties Under South Carolina Law
The South Carolina Residential Landlord and Tenant Act requires a landlord to follow health and safety building codes, make repairs needed to keep a unit fit and habitable, keep common areas reasonably safe, and keep supplied electrical, plumbing, heating, and elevator equipment in reasonably good and safe working order (§ 27-40-440). When a broken stair, failed light, or dead lock in a shared area causes an injury, those duties, the lease, and the maintenance records usually show who controlled the area and who should have fixed it.
Injuries on Government Property
Parks, sidewalks, public buildings, and campuses run by the City of Columbia, Richland County, Lexington County, school districts, or state agencies and universities, including the University of South Carolina, fall under the South Carolina Tort Claims Act. The Act caps damages at $300,000 per person and $600,000 per occurrence (§ 15-78-120), bars punitive damages and prejudgment interest, and generally requires suit within two years, extended to three only when a verified claim is filed first (§ 15-78-110). These claims also have their own exceptions to liability, so they should be reviewed early.
When the Owner Blames You
Expect the standard defenses: you were not watching where you were going, the danger was open and obvious, you assumed the risk, or you were trespassing. South Carolina follows modified comparative negligence (Nelson v. Concrete Supply Co., 303 S.C. 243 (1991)). You can recover as long as your share of fault is 50% or less, and your award is reduced by that percentage. If your fault is greater than that of the defendants combined, you recover nothing. An open and obvious hazard does not automatically defeat a claim where the owner should still have anticipated the harm (Callander v. Charleston Doughnut Corp., 1991).
For claims arising or accruing after January 1, 2026, Act No. 42 of 2025 also lets a defendant ask the jury to assign a share of fault to people or companies not named in the lawsuit, such as a security contractor or a prior owner. Under § 15-38-15, a defendant whose fault is less than 50% of the total pays only its own share. Identifying every responsible party early, and suing the right ones, matters more than it did before.
Compensation You Can Pursue
A premises liability claim can include both financial losses and the personal toll of the injury. Depending on the facts, compensation may include:
- Medical bills, past and future.
- Lost income and reduced earning capacity.
- Pain and suffering, emotional distress, disfigurement, and loss of enjoyment of life.
- Wrongful death damages, where a property failure takes a life (S.C. Code § 15-51-10).
Serious property injuries often involve traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, or other catastrophic injuries, and the most severe are often treated at Prisma Health Richland Hospital, the Midlands’ Level I trauma center. Punitive damages are available for willful, wanton, or reckless conduct, such as an owner who ignored repeated warnings, proven by clear and convincing evidence (§ 15-32-520). They are generally capped at the greater of three times compensatory damages or $500,000, subject to statutory exceptions (§ 15-32-530). When a family loses someone, our Columbia wrongful death lawyers can explain the estate’s options.
What to Do After an Injury on Someone’s Property
The steps you take in the first days protect both your health and the evidence of what the owner knew:
- Report the incident to the owner, manager, or landlord, in writing where possible, and ask for a copy of any incident report.
- Photograph the hazard right away, from several angles, with something for scale, because hazards are often repaired quickly once someone is hurt.
- Get medical care the same day and follow through on treatment.
- Collect witness contact information and note any cameras covering the area.
- Keep the shoes and clothing you were wearing.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the owner’s insurer or accept a quick settlement.
How Long Do You Have to File?
Deadline warning: most South Carolina premises liability lawsuits must be filed within three years of the injury (S.C. Code § 15-3-530(5)), and claims against a government entity generally within two years, extended to three only with a properly filed verified claim (§ 15-78-110). The deadline for a minor’s own claim may be extended (§ 15-3-40). The practical deadline is far shorter, because the notice evidence that decides these cases, such as video, cleaning logs, and incident reports, can disappear in days rather than years.
How a Columbia Premises Claim Moves Forward
Most premises liability claims resolve through settlement with the owner’s insurer, but a fair offer depends on the groundwork. A typical Columbia case moves through these stages:
- Preserving evidence. We send written requests asking the owner and any management company to keep video, logs, incident reports, and prior complaints.
- Investigating notice and control. We find out who owned, leased, managed, or secured the property, and what each knew about the hazard.
- Documenting your losses. Medical records, bills, and proof of lost income build the value of the claim once your treatment course is clearer.
- Negotiating with insurers. Many cases settle at this stage, and no settlement is accepted without your approval.
- Filing suit when needed. Cases from Columbia are generally filed in the Court of Common Pleas in Richland County (Fifth Judicial Circuit) or Lexington County (Eleventh Judicial Circuit), depending on where the injury happened.
We work on a contingency fee basis, so you pay no attorney’s fees or case expenses unless we recover compensation for you. Our fee is calculated on the gross recovery before expenses are deducted. If you were hurt on someone else’s property while doing your job, you may also have a workers’ compensation claim alongside the premises case against the property owner.
How Shelly M. Leeke Approaches a Property Owner’s Defense
Shelly M. Leeke, the firm’s managing partner, spent the early part of her career representing insurance companies at Blue Williams before moving to plaintiff work at Morris Bart. Property owners in Columbia are almost always defended by their liability insurers, so that background helps her anticipate how an insurer will frame notice, visitor status, and open and obvious arguments, and which records it will try to keep out of the case.
Premises law in South Carolina is built largely on court decisions, from Henson to Bass v. Gopal, and Shelly’s training suits that work. She earned her J.D., cum laude, from Tulane University Law School in 2002 and clerked for the Louisiana Supreme Court, after earning a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in Government from Wofford College in 1999. She is licensed in South Carolina and Louisiana, wrote The South Carolina Accident Book, and was named a 2017 Forty Under 40 honoree and a Super Lawyers Rising Star. She is a member of the South Carolina Bar and the South Carolina Association for Justice.
Areas We Serve Around Columbia
From our downtown office at 1111 Laurel Street, we represent people hurt on property throughout the Midlands, including Columbia, Cayce, West Columbia, Forest Acres, St. Andrews, Denny Terrace, Irmo, Lexington, Blythewood, and Orangeburg, along with the rest of Richland County, Lexington County, and Orangeburg County. If a fall in a nursing facility is part of the picture, our Columbia nursing home abuse lawyers can help, and our Columbia personal injury lawyer page covers other types of injury claims.
Hurt at a Columbia Apartment, Store, Pool, or Park?
Whether you were assaulted in an unlit parking lot, bitten by a neighbor’s dog, or your child was hurt at an unfenced pool, the owner’s records of what it knew are the heart of the case. Call our Laurel Street office at (803) 281-6054 so we can start preserving that evidence and review the property, the insurance, and your injuries with you.
Columbia Premises Liability FAQ
The owner says the hazard was open and obvious. Is my case over?
No. South Carolina treats it as part of the fault analysis, not an automatic bar, and an owner can still be liable when it should have expected visitors to be distracted or to encounter the hazard anyway.
I was attacked in an apartment complex parking lot. Who is responsible?
Potentially the landlord, management company, or a security contractor, if the crime was foreseeable and lighting, locks, gates, or guards were inadequate. Prior incident reports and police call records often show how foreseeable it was.
My child was hurt on a neighbor’s property. Does trespassing end the case?
Not necessarily. Under Restatement § 339, adopted in South Carolina in 2007, an owner can be liable to a trespassing child for a dangerous artificial condition, such as an unfenced pool, that the child could not appreciate.
I was hurt in a city park in Columbia. Can I sue the city?
Often yes, through the South Carolina Tort Claims Act. Damages are capped, punitive damages are not allowed, and suit generally must be filed within two years, so contact a lawyer soon after the injury.
Do I pay anything upfront for a premises liability case?
No. We work on a contingency fee under a written agreement, so there is no upfront charge to start your case, and the agreement explains how attorney’s fees and case expenses are handled if we recover compensation.
