Charleston Dashboard v2

Case typeVenueDefendant carrier

Showing intelligence scoped to: MVA cases in tri-county with any carrier. Closest comparable studies highlighted below. Updated 2026-05-28 02:47 UTC.

JURY ANCHOR · OPEN-ENDED DAMAGES

$10,000

Stratified-weighted median across 100 respondents

Premises Liability Reference Study · complete · premises_liability_findings.json

LIABILITY LEAN MULTIPLIER

20×

Store-lean $50,000 ÷ shopper-lean $2,500 (weighted medians)

Premises Liability Reference Study · stratified-weighted per Pollfish methodology

COMPETING FIRM AD VOLUME

16 firms

913 Google · 39 Meta ads currently active

ads.is_currently_active=1 per Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency · marketing.db

PI MOTION ACTIVITY

89 PI cases

40.6% of 219 docket cases · 14 rosters · 2026-05-07 → 2026-05-29

PI subset (MVA + Premises + MedMal + Other PI + Wrongful Death) · Charleston County Common Pleas · litigation.db

Open-Ended Damages by Perceived Liability Lean

Weighted median dollar award by liability attribution. Premises Liability Reference Study, n=100, weighted to Pollfish stratification. The plaintiff-leaning vs. defense-leaning gap is the story; the “Cannot tell” bar (n=5) is shown in muted treatment because the sample is too small to support a confident magnitude.

Headline

Liability lean alone produced a 20× spread in stratified-weighted median damages — store-leaning respondents awarded $50,000, shopper-leaning $2,500.

Liability split

43% perceived liability as approximately equal. 32% leaned shopper; 20% leaned store; 5% couldn’t tell.

Decisive fact

41% cited the plaintiff’s phone use as the decisive fact; 38% cited wet-floor sign placement. Within four points — a near tie between plaintiff-fault and defendant-negligence framings.

Anchoring

57% chose damages under $25,000 even after seeing a $42,000 medical anchor — a strong defense-leaning anchor cluster.

Charleston Premises Liability Reference Study · Pollfish n=100, fielded April 2026, stratified-weighted · chapter forthcoming

Defendant Identity Effects

Cross-comparison between a clear-liability rear-end MVA against a commercial trucking defendant (n=39 of 100 target, preliminary) and the Premises Liability Reference Study (n=100, complete). Same per-respondent-median methodology applied to both — apples-to-apples.

Attribution contrast

4.42×

higher attribution to the corporate defendant

In the truck MVA, 89.7% of respondents attributed primary fault to the trucking company. In the comparable slip-and-fall, 20.3% attributed primary fault to the retail store. Both are stratified-weighted (Premises) or preliminary unweighted (Truck, still fielding). The corporate-defendant attribution premium is substantial despite comparable underlying negligence.

Damages contrast

3×

higher weighted-median damages

Open-ended damages weighted medians ran $150,000 against the corporate truck defendant vs. $50,000 against the retail store (store-leaning respondents only) — a 3× spread in median dollar award for comparable injuries against differently-sized commercial defendants.

The hidden mechanism

~5%

cite corporate identity as decisive

Only ~5% of respondents cite the commercial / corporate nature of the defendant as the decisive fact in their fault attribution. Narrative reasoning consistently frames the truck-MVA decision in specific-negligence terms (GPS distraction, plaintiff stopped at red light) rather than defendant identity. The defendant-identity effect appears to operate through damages valuation, not through articulated bias against corporate defendants.

Charleston Defendant Identity Effects Study · Pollfish n=39 of 100 target as of 2026-05-18 (fielding active) · Cross-comparison vs. Premises Liability Reference Study (n=100) · Sources: Pollfish 395580250 + 395579149 · Preliminary, forthcoming chapter.

Charleston Juror Attitudes Baseline

Seven headline findings from ten weighted questions on general juror attitudes in Charleston tri-county. The plaintiff-favorable baseline is real but quieter than conventional priors suggest.

Verdict attitudes

77%

fact-receptive on million-dollar verdicts

61% said “depends entirely on the facts” and 16% said “jury probably got it right.” Only 16% defaulted to “sounds excessive.” (Q3, n=100, weighted.)

33%:6.4%

plaintiff-lean tiebreaker on 50/50 evidence

On 50/50 evidence, 33% would lean toward the injured person; 6.4% would lean toward the defendant. 61% would need more information. Among those who would lean either way, plaintiff-leaning runs 5.1× the defense rate. (Q5, n=100, weighted.)

67.7%

reject ability-to-pay framing

67.7% said verdicts should be based only on harm caused, not on a defendant's ability to pay. 17.5% said ability to pay should be considered. (Q9, n=100, weighted.) Contradicts the conventional “deep pockets” framing in plaintiff-side argumentation.

Damages legitimacy

87.5%

accept non-economic damages

On damages beyond medical bills for serious injury: 57% “appropriate and necessary,” 30% “appropriate but should be modest,” 10% “uncomfortable but understand,” 2.9% “generally excessive.” (Q6, n=100, weighted.)

80.7%

net favorable view of trial lawyers

49% somewhat agree, 31% strongly agree that trial lawyers perform an important institutional role. (Q7, n=100, weighted.)

Baselines

9.0pp

net anti-insurer fairness baseline

50.8% say insurers treat injured people unfairly (somewhat or very); 41.8% say fairly. (Q2, n=100, weighted.) Real but smaller than unweighted approximations suggested.

+0.8pp

plaintiff-favorable PI default

59.5% have no default assumption when they hear about a PI lawsuit. Among those who do, 20.7% lean “probably legitimate” and 19.9% lean “probably exaggerating.” (Q10, n=100, weighted.) Charleston jurors come in agnostic, not skeptical.

Charleston Juror Attitudes Baseline · Pollfish n=100, fielded April 2026, stratified to SC adult population · Source: Pollfish Survey 395579992 · Forthcoming chapter.

CARRIER BRIEFING

State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins Co

State Farm · NAIC 100369

Rank #1

Showing default carrier (highest 2024 SC PPA market share). Change the “Defendant carrier” selection above to view a specific carrier.

Identity

SC PPA market share

21.24%

A.M. Best

A++

2024 SC premium

$906.9M

NAIC

100369

Behavior signals

Complaint Index—Q3 2026 with Insurer Watch Vol. 1

Recent rate filings—Q3 2026 (SC SERFF deep-dive)

Severity narrative—Q3 2026 (10-K / press review)

Implications for plaintiff PI practice

Carrier-specific implications for plaintiff strategy are forthcoming with the Insurer Watch Vol. 1 publication. Subscribers will see settlement velocity benchmarks, recent rate trajectory, complaint pattern analysis, and named adjuster / defense counsel patterns where identifiable.

Charleston Tri-County Jury Pool — Partisan Composition

Precinct-level 2024 General Election results, weighted by adult population across 301 precincts.

Strong D20.3%Lean D19.8%Lean R33.7%Strong R26.2%

Tri-county adult population: 676,038. Aggregated from 301 precincts; lean buckets defined as Strong: ≥60% two-party · Lean: 50–60% two-party. From the Charleston Tri-County Partisan Composition × Demographics, 2024 General.

From the Charleston Tri-County Partisan Composition × Demographics, 2024 General →

SC Personal Auto Insurance Market — Top 10 Carriers

2024 Direct Premiums Written, ranked by market share. Top 10 carriers represent 70.69% of the $4.27B SC PPA market.

Source: SC DOI 2024 Private Passenger Auto Liability Premiums Report (2025-08-21) ↗

Charleston Common Pleas — Docket Snapshot

Captured 2026-05-12 · 14 rosters · 2026-05-07 → 2026-05-29 · 219 unique cases · 371 motion appearances · 3 judges

Weekly recapture in progress; trend views will activate after the next session.

Case mix by subtype

Charleston County Common Pleas case subtype categorization · n=219

Roughly 4 in 10 cases on Charleston Common Pleas motion dockets in this 22-day window are PI matters (89 of 219, 40.6%). MVA is the largest single category at 30 cases (13.7% of total, 34% of PI).

Motion-type mix

Motion appearances by type · n=328 with descriptions

Summary Judgment and Compel motions together account for 99 of 328 motion appearances (30%). 57 of 371 motion appearances show a completion status as of capture.

Filing-party patterns by case type

Of motions filed in each PI category, which side is doing the filing

Plaintiff-filedDefendant-filedOther (APL / TDF / OTH / RSP / TPP)

Plaintiff-side motion filing dominates across all four PI categories in this snapshot. MedMal runs the most plaintiff-skewed at 53% (n=17), with Premises at 48% (n=33), Other PI at 42% (n=43), and MVA at 37% (n=46). MedMal is the category often assumed to be defense-driven via early dispositive motions; the snapshot contradicts that pattern. Whether the finding reflects a single-capture artifact or a stable venue tendency will be confirmable with the next capture.

Motion docket activity by judge

Charleston County Common Pleas · 22-day window

Judge	Motions	Cases	Rosters	Top motion type	Top case type
Judge Van Slambrook	165	84	5	Compel	Other PI
Judge Wheeler	124	67	4	Compel	MVA
Judge Rode	82	70	5	Settlement Approval	MVA

Of 371 motion appearances captured, 57 show a completion status as of capture date · 22 of those completed motions involve PI-category cases. Completion-status coverage is partial in this capture; treat as supportive, not headline.

Top Charleston PI Firms by Ad Activity

16 firms currently active

1.George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers
200 Google ads · 0 Meta · avg SERP rank —
2.John Price Law Firm
195 Google ads · 0 Meta · avg SERP rank 6.8
3.Joye Law Firm
118 Google ads · 3 Meta · avg SERP rank 4.4
4.Thumbs Up Guys (MDSW Legal)
79 Google ads · 0 Meta · avg SERP rank —
5.Shelly Leeke Law Firm
56 Google ads · 0 Meta · avg SERP rank —
1 of the top 10 Charleston PI firms by current ad activity appear in the litigation snapshot: Yarborough Applegate. The pattern is consistent with industry observation that heavily-advertised PI firms settle most matters pre-suit and rarely appear on motion dockets — though this finding requires additional captures to confirm.

Charleston PI Marketing Landscape — Top 10 by Google Ad Volume

Live read from marketing.db. Activity bar normalized against the top firm; reads as relative market presence on Google paid search at a glance.

#	Firm	Google	Meta	SERP rank
1	George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers	200	0	—
2	John Price Law Firm	195	0	6.8
3	Joye Law Firm	118	3	4.4
4	Thumbs Up Guys (MDSW Legal)	79	0	—
5	Shelly Leeke Law Firm	56	0	—
6	Steinberg Law Firm	55	1	3.4
7	Yarborough Applegate	55	0	3.9
8	Christmas Injury Lawyers	45	0	4.5
9	Trey Harrell Law Office	34	0	—
10	Hughey Law Firm	27	0	4.9

Channel concentration: Charleston PI paid acquisition runs almost entirely through Google. Of 1,156 currently active ads observed across both channels, 1,112 are Google paid search; 44 are Meta. Source: Channel Map Q2 2026 →

Recognition vs. top-of-mind

Aided recallTop-of-mind (would call first)

Morgan & Morgan dominates both aided recall (85.4%) and top-of-mind (30.0%) — the best recognition-to-call-first conversion in the market. Joye Law Firm (83.9% recognized → 2.6% top-of-mind) is widely known but rarely the first call. Anastopoulo (67.5% recognized → ~0% top-of-mind) shows the same gap.

22.2% of respondents named a firm not in the canonical alias list (open-ended Q4 response, free text). The distribution reflects responses successfully matched to known Charleston firms.

Selection criteria importance

TV and billboard presence is the highest-ranked selection criterion in Charleston (weighted mean 6.93/9). Verdict and settlement track record is the lowest (weighted mean 3.39/9). This contradicts what most plaintiff PI lawyers assume drives client choice and helps explain why the TV-heavy firms dominate top-of-mind recall. (Q7, n=100, 1–9 importance scale per Pollfish question schema, weighted.)

Ad turnoffs

Loud or aggressive TV ads turn off 51.1% of respondents. Cartoon mascots and gimmicky branding turn off 43.2%. Yet top-of-mind recall is dominated by firms that lean into exactly these patterns. The market behaves in cognitive dissonance — respondents say they're turned off but still call the firms whose ads they remember. (Q9, n=100, weighted.)

Charleston PI Marketing / Brand Recognition · Pollfish n=100, fielded April 2026, stratified · Source: Pollfish Survey 395579863 · Forthcoming chapter: Charleston Brand Recognition & Selection Criteria Study.

Case-value query

Enter your case facts; receive a panel-derived research card with damages range, defendant identity comparison, venue context, and methodology citations.

Beta available · Q3 2026 chat layer

Open Case-Check beta →MVP live now at /charleston/case-check. The chat-based case-value query layer is forthcoming Q3 2026.

Sample fact pattern (try it in the beta)

“MVA case in West Ashley. Defendant is a State Farm-insured personal driver who rear-ended my client at a red light. Disputed liability — defendant claims my client braked suddenly. Cervical strain, $22,000 medical specials, three weeks off work. What's the panel-implied damages range, what modifiers apply, and which library studies are the closest comparables?”

What the synthesis returns:

Comparable studies in the Charleston library. The system identifies which panel scenarios most closely match your fact pattern.
Panel-derived damages context. Weighted median estimates with sample sizes, from the closest comparable studies. Preliminary-n studies are flagged with explicit fielding status.
Modifier observations. Venue partisan composition, defendant identity contrast, carrier market context, juror attitudes baseline.
Methodology and citations. Every claim cites the source study and sample size. Research synthesis, not legal advice — the lawyer decides.