David Yarborough

David has history of achieving record-breaking jury verdicts and settlements for his clients. In December 2023, David and partners obtained a $44.6 million jury verdict against Amazon.com, Inc in the first case ever to hold Amazon vicariously liable under an agency theory for the vicarious and negligent acts of its delivery drivers, who Amazon claims are independent contractors. This was the largest personal injury verdict ever awarded in conservative Dorchester County, and is believed to be one of the largest jury verdicts in South Carolina history in an injury case not involving death. Read more about this case here, and listen to David and William discuss the case on the Great Trials Podcast in Episode 172 here.

In October 2021, David achieved the largest dram shop verdict ever in Charleston County, South Carolina, for the sale of alcohol to minors by a Sunoco gas station. David and the firm also achieved one of the top 100 jury verdicts in the United States stemming from their $35.9 million verdict against PEPCO in conservative Montgomery County, Maryland.

David has collected jury verdicts and settlements totaling hundreds of millions of dollars for his catastrophically injured clients in cases involving bad faith against insurance companies; industrial plant injuries resulting in worker deaths; product liability from automobile rollovers and industrial machine injuries; toxic chemical spills by railroad companies; pool drownings; trucking and auto accidents; nursing home and daycare negligence; dram shop and alcohol liability negligence by bars and restaurants; and negligence by retail stores, energy companies, apartment complexes, hotels, and construction contractors for job-site, balcony collapse and premises injuries.

He is a member of the Charleston Chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), the South Carolina Association of Justice, the American Association for Justice, the Charleston County Bar’s Mental Wellness Committee, Lawyers Helping Lawyers, and the Board of Regents of TriCounty Family Ministries. For the past twenty-five years David has been heavily involved in mentoring and counseling of people suffering from alcoholism and addiction who are seeking recovery. He places a large emphasis on giving back to the local community both by doing free legal work and through generous financial and service contributions to local charities each year. He and his wife, Jessica, are both Charleston natives and have four children.

Prior to founding Yarborough Applegate, David was a partner at another Charleston-based law firm where he was part of a national trial team defending products liability cases in trials across the United States. His experience handling national litigation and having represented both plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal courts around the country provides him a varied perspective in discovery strategy, negotiations, and trial.