Truths About Wrongful Death
What is 'wrongful death'?
A wrongful death usually involves a situation where one of your loved ones or your family members, or under California law, domestic partner. Is killed by the negligence or the wrong doing of another. As a result the family member or domestic partner can sue the wrong doer, in order to recover for the loss of care, love, support, and affection that the decedent had once provided for them.
Who can sue for wrongful death?
People who can sue for wrongful death under California law and many other jurisdictions, include close family members such as fathers, sons, children. Sometimes siblings like sisters and brothers and also domestic partners under some state statutes.
How is the amount of damages determined in a wrongful death case?
The amount of damages is determined in many ways. The economic loss of support to the family is determined based upon the decedent's expected life expectancy had they not been wrongfully killed, and then multiplied into the amount of years they would have lived. That would determine how much money they would have been able to provide for the family. As a general rule, that's how those damages are calculated.
Does a wrongful death settlement need to be shared with all relatives?
Whether or not the settlement has to be shared with all the relatives really depends on the laws of the individual states. However, as a general proposition, those relatives need to join in the lawsuit if they want to recover.
What is the statute of limitations for filing a wrongful death claim?
The clock for the statute of limitations in a wrongful death claim usually starts to tick on the date of the death of the decedant. In California, the wrongful death statute, as of 2007, is a two year statute, which means two years from the date that the decedant died, within that time period, the plaintiff, in this case, the family members, would have to sue for wrongful death.
What is the difference between 'medical malpractice' and 'wrongful death'?
Medical malpractice is simply a heightened standard of negligence that is placed out for medical care providers. Because they're experts in their fields they're simply held to a higher standard of care. If they commit medical malpractice they can cause many problems for a plaintiff such as death or decapitation, or amputation, or cancers just depending on what they do. They could be injecting someone with a radioactive formula for some kind of a MRI scan or a CT scan that was too high of a dose that could potentially cause severe damage or harm to someone. So in a medical malpractice type of a claim you're simply suing a physician or care provider for breaching their heightened duty of care which caused you damages whereas a wrongful death case is a case where someone simply caused your death. Now a medical malpractice case can be a wrongful death case but a wrongful death case doesn't always necessarily have to be a medical malpractice case.
What are 'survival statutes' in a wrongful death claim?
Survival statutes differ in wrongful death cases pretty much in that in a survival statute, unlike a wrongful death claim, you can recover for the pain and suffering of the decedent while he lived. Under a wrongful death claim, you can only recover for your loss of love, affection, and care, and your lost future economic support. But under the survival statutes of most states, you can also try and put in a claim to recover for the decedent's own pain and suffering.
Can a judgment obtained as result of a wrongful death be discharged in bankruptcy?
