About Robert V. Phillips
Attorney Robert V. Phillips, the managing partner at one of the most successful plaintiff firms in the region, has become one of the most successful attorneys in South Carolina. Innovative and record-breaking are words often used to describe Robert. His unique background as a former professional athlete, his willingness to outwork his opponents and his use of technology in the courtroom allow Robert to take on and win complex cases against some of the biggest and most powerful defendants in the country. Whether billion-dollar corporations or the Federal government, Robert has no fear of any opponent.
While Robert's clients have usually suffered catastrophic injuries resulting from medical malpractice, reckless 18-wheeler trucks and defective products, if there has been a truly unjust result, Robert has been known to take certain cases based on principle alone. In fact, in a recent high-speed police crash that only allowed for a nominal recovery, Robert took the case all the way to the United States Supreme Court and created a new civil rights claim that previously did not exist. Only a handful of attorneys in the State have ever taken a case to the Supreme Court. This ground-breaking result changed the law nationwide, allowing countless victims and their families to obtain justice.
Robert was born in Huntsville, Alabama. He attended Clemson University on a tennis scholarship, turned professional after his junior year and competed on the ATP Tour for six years, reaching a top-300 world ranking. He returned to Clemson to complete his undergraduate studies, studied business for a year at the Université Catholique de Lille in France, and then attended law school at USC, where he was the graduate assistant coach for the Gamecock Men's Tennis Team.
Proven verdicts and settlements at McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips, LLC
These results are credited to McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips, LLC. A result appears under an attorney's own name only when a published source names them as counsel on the case.
A South Carolina family reached a confidential $40.35 million settlement, structured under a high-low agreement, after radiologists reading a newborn's early chest X-rays missed a ribcage deformity that turned out to be a sign of neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer that grew into the child's spinal canal and caused permanent paralysis before it was caught.
A Spartanburg County jury awarded Dara Robinson $16 million against Spartanburg & Pelham OBGYN and three of its physicians after they delayed a cesarean delivery for roughly 30 hours despite fetal monitoring showing signs of distress, and her son died shortly after birth.
Seletha Gartrell, 54, of Aiken, arrived at Aiken Regional Medical Centers on December 6, 2012 with severe sepsis and was not given the antibiotics her doctors ordered for roughly 14 hours; she went into septic shock, suffered a cardiac arrest, and lost both legs above the knee, her left arm below the elbow, and fingers on her right hand. In March 2017 an Aiken County jury found the hospital negligent and awarded her $13.75 million, made up of $10 million in economic damages and $3.75 million in non-economic damages. The hospital publicly disagreed with the verdict, and no appeal or later reduction appears in any public record we could find.
Vernon Sulton, paralyzed by gunshot wounds he suffered as a bystander to an armed robbery, was admitted to HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital in Columbia with a stage two pressure ulcer on his sacrum; in the 11 days he stayed there it deepened to stage four, requiring a colostomy and skin-graft surgery. A Richland County jury found the hospital and six of its nurses negligent, awarding $306,693.25 to his estate, $4 million to his wife for loss of consortium, and $8 million in punitive damages against HealthSouth. On November 21, 2012 the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed the entire verdict and ordered a new trial, holding that the trial judge had wrongly instructed the jury that the hospital owed a heightened duty of care. What happened after the remand is not in any public record we could find.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
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