Wrongful Death

When Personal Tragedy Strikes

When someone's life is lost through the wrongful misconduct or gross negligence of another, it is termed wrongful death. Dealing with such a circumstance can be the most emotionally trying time of one's life. At (Place name of Law Firm Here) we empathize with your bereavement, having experienced similar tragedies in our own personal lives. Some of our staff has lost family members and others close to us to unintended personal injuries. We have seen both sides of this devastation, as both clients and attorneys, and it has always been our mission to help our clients to overcome the legal obstacles to financial and emotional recovery. We know from our own personal experience that the grief one feels can obscure the clarity of one's vision as to the best course of legal action in the aftermath of such tragedies. For that reason the services of a skilled objective, detached but yet sympathetic legal counsel, can be irreplaceable in your quest to secure just compensation for your losses so that you can readjust your live and move forward with in a confident manner.

Wrongful Death Defined

In most legal jurisdictions Wrongful Death is defined as The taking of the life of an individual resulting from another's willful or negligent act. The great body of tort law that relates to actions brought for wrongful death can be quite complicated to interpret and can vary considerably from state to state. The original concept behind these statutes was to provide financial support for widows and orphans of deceased victims and to provide a deterrent in the form of a strong financial motivation for individuals to behave responsibly and in such a manner as to insure the security and right to life of others. Actions for wrongful death are to be distinguished from legal procedures designed to determine criminal guilt and the two bodies of law have little in common other than to provide rules for the determination of matters of fact related to the case. An individual who has been found not guilty in a murder trial may nonetheless be sued in a civil action for wrongful death as was seen in the infamous O. J. Simpson case in California wherein the jury awarded the plaintiffs $33,500,000 dollars.

Any number of circumstances can give rise to such a suit regardless of whether or not they were intentional or not. For instance a person involved in a fight who deals a knockout blow to his adversary's skull may not have intended his death, however, the intent to deliver an injury was obvious. Likewise the impaired driver of a car who is operating the vehicle under the influence of drugs or alcohol can be held liable in a wrongful death action for being the proximate cause of the death of another based upon the fact of his negligence. Many suits arise in an industrially wherein reasonable precautions to insure the safety of workers were not observed. The list of possibilities knows no limits but the key factors are the death of an individual along with an act or omission of another that was the proximate cause.

As illustrative of the variety of defendants who find themselves on the receiving end of this type of litigation are the following:

vehicle operators involved in fatal accidents
designers and builders of faulty vehicular access routes
government agencies who negligently fail to post road hazard warnings
manufacturers of defective consumer products
an owner of a premises whereat the alcohol was served
restaurants who sell contaminated meals

Who Is Entitled to Bring Suit?

Once again, the laws that establish standing to bring a suit for wrongful death vary from one state to another. In every state, recovery of damages may be petitioned by a wife who loses a husband or a husband who loses a wife. Children may sue for the loss of parents and parents may sue for the loss of children if the minor children were financially dependent upon the parents at the time. Conversely, adult children who are financially independent and/or married do not usually have this remedy available. Next of kin may also be entitled to sue but these determinations are based on the nature of the relationship between them and the extent of the financial dependency involved. In the event of same- sex living arrangements, life partners are entitled to bring actions in many states. The determination as to proper standing must be established in order to proceed. At times this legal issue becomes an issue and requires the services of a knowledgeable attorney to sort out the nuances.

What Must You Do?

A valid wrongful death action must prove that the acts or omissions of the defendant were the proximate cause of the deceased death. The defendant's wrongful conduct must have created a natural and directly apparent series of events that resulted in the death. The statute of limitations in such cases is normally two years. Beyond such time limit a defendant may well lose their right to file an action. Wrongful death suits should be filed immediately after the damages occur. Consult us at (Law Firm's Name Here) immediately that valuable testimony and other evidence may not be lost over time.

What damages can you rightfully claim?

Damages recoverable fall into two general categories: compensatory and punitive.

Compensatory damages are designed recover for lost income and constitute the largest percentage of awards in wrongful death suits. Medical and funeral expenses are also recoverable. Amounts for grief, emotional suffering, loss of companionship and/or other valued services can also be awarded. Many factors must be taken into consideration in determining such damages. There are some statutory limitations or “caps as they are called such as those on child care services that are no longer available to the bereaved victims. Most controversial items are open to arbitration between insurance company lawyers and the plaintiff's attorney. In this regard the services of a skilled attorney who understands these types of negotiation are invaluable. At (Name of Law Firm Here) we have been involved in numerous negotiations of this type and can insure the best possible outcome in your case.

Punitive damages are generally reserved for those instances in which the wrongful death was the consequence of an act that was extraordinarily negligent or heinous. Such awards are decided by a jury. The distribution of such monetary awards to beneficiaries is usually based upon the degree of their particular loss.

Can You Sue the Government?

In recent years there has been an expansive rise in governmental abuse of citizens' rights. Some of these violations have resulted in tragically wrongful deaths of innocent citizens. It is one of the fastest growing areas of wrongful death litigation. The War on Drugs has resulted in numerous incidents in which police wearing masks, military assault uniforms, armed with fully automatic rifles and traveling in armed gangs called SWAT teams have invaded homes in tactical raids using faulty information as the basis of their warrants. They have battered down doors at totally incorrect addresses and have wrongfully gunned down totally innocent property owners who armed themselves in defense against what they thought to be criminal intruders. This unfortunate trend along with other forms of police abuse in our now-militarized police state is on the rise in the United States.

Some actors or governmental agencies may be deemed legally immune from their abuses under a doctrine labeled Sovereign Immunity . The idea of sovereign immunity is an ancient, common law holdover from the medieval precept of The Divine Right of Kings which held that The Regent rules from a mandate by God, is consequently infallible and can do no wrong . The Founding Fathers of our county held quite a different point of view and fomented a violent revolution to drive the influence of The King and his loyal minions out of our country. This was accomplished for the most part by slaughtering them on battlefields. Every Fourth of July today we celebrate our victory over those British tyrants, that victory having been purchased so dearly with the life blood of our honored patriots. The result of the Revolutionary War was to transfer the concept of sovereignty from The King to every individual citizen of the United States. That individual sovereignty is secured to us citizens under The Bill of Rights to The Constitution. What we are witness to today is the resurrection of that very doctrine against which our forefathers so violently rebelled.

Sovereign immunity, and its equally homely sister entitled qualified immunity as granted to police, judges and other statist minions, do not provide an open license for governmental authorities to ignore citizens' rights. There are more hoops to jump through in this type of suit but the awards are commensurate with the effort. As an added bonus these awards are often accompanied by much needed policy changes on the part of the offending governmental agency insuring the preservation of our rights as citizens. Only a qualified attorney can determine the merits of your suit or the likelihood of your success in such an endeavor. If you have lost a loved one in a confrontation with abusive governmental authorities do not hesitate to contact us at (insert Name of Law Firm Here) about initiating a suit for the wrongful death of your loved one.

In recent years this concept has been extended by federal law to provide immunity from wrongful death claims to large pharmaceutical drug companies. Some of these companies manufacture defective vaccines laced with mercury, a preservative that so provokes the immune system so as to cause convulsions, autism and sometimes outright death in children and the elderly. Despite this discouraging fact other avenues of legal action are open to parents who have lost a child and suspect an immune reaction to a vaccination as the proximate cause. Consult with us at (Law Firm's Name Here) about these options.