Personal injury lawyers are, as you’d expect, specialized in helping victims receive compensation for serious injuries that are someone else’s fault.
What you probably didn’t know is that they also fight for compensation after an accident has tragic consequences.
Wrongful death cases are complicated, but they are often handled by personal injury lawyers. The process is just slightly different.
What is Wrongful Death?
Wrongful death is essentially the same as a personal injury case, except for how the incident ended. Someone is negligent, another person is seriously injured, and compensation is required to make things as right as possible.
The only core difference is that the victim isn’t alive to seek compensation, and the event directly caused their death.
How Wrongful Death Differs from Personal Injury Cases
In a wrongful death case, it’s unfortunate, but the victim of the incident isn’t around to seek compensation for what happened. That does not mean that the person at fault is going to get off the hook.
Instead, a personal injury lawyer helps a family member or a representative of the victim seek compensation.
Who Can Represent the Deceased Victim?
Who a personal injury lawyer can work with to receive compensation on behalf of the victim is fairly limited. A random person or a friend of the victim with no legal connection to them can’t start a case.
However, there are several valid people to represent the victim.
- Spouse
- Children
- Immediate family members
- The person designated as the head of the estate upon passing
What Can You Be Compensated for with Wrongful Death?
Just like any other type of case, there is a set list of things that you can claim when dealing with a wrongful death case.
These include a lot of the expenses that are also covered in personal injury cases, but the person receiving compensation isn’t the direct victim.
Medical bills and loss of income are the two big ones.
However, there are also unique forms of compensation in a wrongful death claim. These include:
- loss of companionship
- loss of services
- pain and suffering from losing the victim
- funeral costs
- any type of inheritance that was lost due to various reasons.
Your personal injury lawyer will help you determine what types of compensation are most relevant for your specific case, because the whole list doesn’t apply to every case.
People You Can Sue for Wrongful Death
There is a wide variety of wrongful death cases that a personal injury lawyer can help you with. These include:
- The driver who caused the collision
- Death on a company’s property
- Suing a bar or other supplier who gave alcohol to a driver before they caused the collision
- Medical practitioners who failed to follow protocol
- Designers who created faulty roads or structures that caused death
and similar people who can be found at fault.
Cases That Can’t Be Handled as Wrongful Death Cases
Pretty much anything that would be considered a personal injury that resulted in death can be handled as a wrongful death case, but there are unique circumstances that prevent some people from being sued. Even if they clearly caused the death.
Police and similar professionals who are working within the confines of their job description typically can’t be sued for wrongful death.
For example, if a police officer was pursuing your loved one and tire strips were used to stop them, but they swerved into a lethal collision, you can’t claim that your loved one’s death was caused by the officer.
Doctors and surgeons who follow all protocols generally cannot be sued for wrongful death if your loved one dies under their care. Only if there’s a provable case of malpractice can they be sued.
Another example would be in a case that was declared self-defense. A person with a self-defense claim has already been through the criminal court system and proven to have acted within their rights, and there is no way to sue them for wrongful death afterward in civil court.
Finally, if your loved one was employed by the company whose property they died on, even if it was caused by negligence, it’s not usually a wrongful death case. This is almost always handled by workers’ compensation. Suing a company for wrongful death is for when the person wasn’t employed there.
How Long Do You Have to File a Wrongful Death Claim?
Wrongful death isn’t like murder or other types of death-related charges. If you wait too long, the would-be defendant is protected, and a personal injury lawyer can’t do anything about it.
In most states, the statute of limitations is two years. So, it’s best to speak to a lawyer as fast as possible.
Read also: Dangerous Construction Injuries
What Will a Personal Injury Lawyer Need for Your Wrongful Death Case?
For the most part, your wrongful death claim will require the same things that are necessary for a personal injury case. Documentation of the incident, documentation of every medical visit and injury, evidence that the other party is at fault, and similar items.
However, funeral bills, proof of the income you lost due to the person’s death, and documentation of any other factor that affects the case from your perspective are also needed.
This stuff can be difficult to get because much of it is the documentation and personal information of the deceased. Luckily, you’re not in this alone. Your personal injury lawyer will help you with recovering necessary documentation and evidence via the proper legal avenues.
How to Start Your Wrongful Death Claim
Handling wrongful death cases is fairly straightforward, but you do need to have a few things in order before you start.
First, make sure eligible to make the claim. We listed valid options earlier.
Then, make sure that there’s a good chance your claim is valid. There are a lot of factors at play with a wrongful death case, and we don’t expect you to know for sure.
However, it helps save you a lot of stress and time to at least make sure your claim isn’t disqualified for one of the more obvious reasons before trying to file it.
Once you’ve done that, gather as much information as you can, and then it’s time to contact an experienced and reputable lawyer. At The Law Office of Scott D. DeSalvo, LLC, we’ll give you a free consultation to help you make sure you have a case, and then we’ll help you get the justice you deserve.
In addition to wrongful death cases, we handle a wide range of other claims, including slip and fall injuries, construction site accidents, rideshare incidents like Uber and Lyft, Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) accidents, and many more.
Contact us today to schedule your free consultation!
