Who Can File A Wrongful Death Claim?
A wrongful death claim occurs when an individual dies because of the negligence or wrongdoing of another person, business, or entity. The claim can be intentional or unintentional, but a lawyer help you file a wrongful death lawsuit against the wrongdoer. When family members are faced with the pain losing a loved one, the last thing they want to consider is that it could have been avoided. However, the family deserves to receive a financial settlement in the form of a wrongful death claim. Such lawsuits can mitigate the financial and emotional stress on surviving family members, including the loss of support, guidance, and nurture.
Determining if You Can File a Wrongful Death Lawsuit
There are several criteria that a wrongful death lawyer can help you decide if you can file a wrongful death lawsuit and recover a wrongful death claim. Your lawyer will help you discover if your loved one died due to any of these forms of negligence and if you have grounds for a wrongful death lawsuit.
- Medical malpractice is grounds for a wrongful death lawsuit
- An auto accident or other crash resulting from someone else’s negligence is grounds for a wrongful death claim by a wrongful death lawyer
- A workplace accident due to carelessness or negligence can lead to a wrongful death lawsuit
- Criminal behavior can lead to the death of a loved one and be grounds for a wrongful death claim by your wrongful death lawyer
- Negligence leading to death during a supervised activity can be grounds for a wrongful death lawsuit
- A slip and fall injury on someone else’s property that ends in death can be grounds for a wrongful death claim by a wrongful death lawyer
These are examples of complex lawsuits, which an experienced lawyer has the expertise to unravel.
Calculating Wrongful Death Claims
If your lawyer determines that you do have grounds for a wrongful death claim, a court must appoint a personal representative, usually from your family, to represent your family’s wrongful death claim. If you are the personal representative, you should work with your legal team to calculate the amount of damages in your wrongful death lawsuit. The amount of those damages varies, but your lawyer has the experience to help you compile the elements for a fair and just compensation. The elements you lawyer may recommend for your case can include the loss of support for the family, loss of contribution and service to the family, lost prospects for an inheritance, as well as funeral and medical expenses. Your lawyer knows how courts generally rule on these wrongful death claim elements based on the decedent’s age, earning capacity, intelligence and training, health, and character, not to mention the needs of the family filing the wrongful death lawsuit.
There are some special wrongful death claims that vary widely by state and circumstance of the deceased, which your wrongful death lawyer can help you understand. If the deceased was a child or an elderly person, a wrongful death claim may be small, based on the speculative or nonexistent potential earnings of the deceased. If the deceased was a stay-at-home spouse and parent, your wrongful death lawyer may advise that your wrongful death claim can be higher, because the wrongful death lawsuit must consider the expense of paying someone to care for the home and children. Finally, if the deceased is an unborn child, some states do not allow wrongful death lawsuits at all. Getting the right legal advise will help you decide whether you can file such a wrongful death claim in your state.