South Carolina
Kevin R. Dean
Member Attorney
Kevin Dean focuses his litigation efforts on catastrophic injury, products liability, complex personal injury and wrongful death litigation. As co-leader of Motley Rice’s Catastrophic Injury practice group, Kevin represents individual victims and families affected by tragic events caused by hazardous consumer products, occupational and industrial accidents, fires, premise injuries and other incidents of negligence. He currently is lead plaintiffs’ counsel in the wrongful death and negligence case against the Sofa Super Store, contractors and multiple furniture manufacturers on behalf of the families of several firefighters lost in the June 2007 warehouse fire in Charleston, South Carolina.
Since 2005, Kevin has played a leadership role in litigating hundreds of medical malpractice cases alleging illegal organ harvesting and potentially diseased human tissue and organ transplants. He is actively involved with medical malpractice, defective medical devices and pharmaceutical drug litigation. Additionally, Kevin litigates vehicle defect cases, including against “the Big Three” automotive manufacturers General Motors, Chrysler and Ford, in cases involving defective brakes, door locks, door latches, seat belts and roll overs. He was a trial co-counsel lawyer in Guzman v. Ford (2001), the first case brought to trial regarding a hidden defective outside door latch handle, as well as in the vehicle rollover case Hayward v. Ford (2005) and a plaintiffs’ verdict in Watson v. Ford (2006), a stuck cruise control case.
Prior to joining Motley Rice, Kevin was a partner with the Law Offices of J. Edward Bell III, LLC, in Georgetown, South Carolina. Before moving to South Carolina in 2001, he was a member of the William S. Stone, P.C. law firm in Blakely, Georgia, and began his career as an associate with The Bennett Law Firm of Valdosta, Georgia. His experience includes the health insurance fraud and post-claims underwriting case Clark v. Security Life Insurance Company, the largest civil RICO case in Georgia history, and Wiggins v. Parsons Nursery, one of the largest environmental and health contamination cases in South Carolina. Kevin also served as a County Commissioner on the Early County Georgia Board of Commissioners and still has the distinguished honor of having been the youngest elected commissioner in county history.
Kevin frequently appears in local and national broadcast and print media discussing legal matters of workplace safety, fire prevention and other products liability, as well as specific casework and efforts for changes and improvements in various industries. He is a member of the American Association for Justice, Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, and South Carolina Association for Justice. He co-authored “Dangerous Doors and Loose Latches” for the November 2004 issue of Trial Magazine for the American Association for Justice (formerly Association of Trial Lawyers of America) and is the author of “The Right to Jury Trial in ERISA Civil Enforcement Actions” published in The American Journal of Trial Advocacy (1989).
