Wrongful Death

Wrongful death is asserted when someone dies because of someone else's negligence or misconduct. This someone else may be a person, a company or a combination of an organization and the people that represent it.

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Wrongul Death Overview
Numerous wrongful death claims are filed each year in the United States and abroad. Wrongful death lawsuits are comprised of claims charging negligence or misconduct when a death has occurred. Wrongful death lawsuits vary in that the manner and mode of death can be one of thousands of ways. For example, a wrongful death lawsuit may be brought against a physician or a hospital claiming medical malpractice. It could also be brought against a driver of a car that caused a traffic fatality.

Some wrongful death claims are brought against the manufacturers of everyday products consumers use. Toys, appliances, car seats, vehicles and numerous other consumer products have been the subject of wrongful death lawsuits.

Damages are assessed in a number of ways in a wrongful death claim but rest chiefly on the financial loss of the family as a result of the death. Even if the decedent was not currently earning money at the time of death, damages can be recovered due to the loss of the earning ability of the decedent.

Wrongful Death Lawsuits
Wrongful death lawsuits are filed and often won when someone dies due to someone else's negligence or misconduct. These lawsuits cover a broad range of circumstances ranging from defective products to medical malpractice. A wrongful death lawsuit may also be filed in the case of a fatal car accident, airplane crash, industrial accident or homicide or suspected homicide.

Wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against those suspected of committing homicide and they've also been filed by those who committed homicide yet blamed another entity or person for the act. Former talk show host Jenny Jones was the subject of a wrongful death lawsuit when one guest on her show shot and killed another guest of the same sex who confessed he had a crush on him. The person committing the murder blamed the show and Jenny Jones because he said he had been duped into thinking his crush was a woman.

There are thousands of wrongful death attorneys who specialize in these types of cases. Sometimes the cases are settled out of court for an agreed upon amount and sometimes the person bringing the suit wants nothing more than a jury to find the defendant responsible regardless of the amount of money involved. Since civil suits rely on a different set of rules than criminal trials, the defendant only has to be found guilty by a preponderance of the evidence rather than beyond a reasonable doubt. This just means that the jury must conclude that it is more likely than not that the defendant is responsible for the death of the individual or persons named in the suit.

Fatal Car Accidents
Fatal car accidents are often the subject of wrongful death claims. Apart from the criminal proceedings, someone who causes the death of another after drinking and driving will likely be sued for wrongful death. In addition, people who cause the death of others in fatal car accidents in the absence of alcohol or drugs may also face a wrongful death lawsuit as in the case of Brandy Norwood, who was involved in a fatal car crash December 30, 2006 in which a woman died from injuries sustained in the wreck.

The family of the woman who died in the crash has filed a 50 million dollar lawsuit against the actress and singer. Since the accident occurred on a California freeway, it will be up to the laws of the state of California to determine how this wrongful death lawsuit proceeds.

A wrongful death lawsuit may also be filed against the manufacturer of the vehicle involved in a fatal car wreck if there is a design flaw or manufacturing defect found to have caused the crash. Numerous wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against manufacturers and others when tires, air bags or other vehicular systems were found to be defective.

Defective Products
A wrongful death claim may be brought against a manufacturer, seller or distributor of a defective product that causes someone's death. Wrongful death lawsuits have even been brought against manufacturers and others for providing the wrong instructions or for failing to provide instructions or warnings for products that were not inherently defective.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is the federal agency that oversees the manufacture and distribution of thousands of products. The Commission sets safety standards by which companies must abide in order to keep the public safe from defective products.

A product may be defective because of the way it was designed or it may be defective because it wasn't manufactured properly. If a product is manufactured according to specifications, yet there is a flaw in the initial design that leads to someone's death, a wrongful death lawsuit may be brought.

Wrongful death lawsuits have successfully been brought against manufacturers of toys, tires, appliances and countless other consumer goods. Manufacturers sometimes voluntarily issue recalls when a defect in design or manufacture is discovered. They often publish these recalls on their websites and in the case where a consumer has registered a product, the consumer may be contacted directly.

The CPSC as well as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other agencies also publish product recalls. While tragically people sometimes die as the result of a defective product, most manufacturers are diligent to produce safe products and work diligently to correct errors when they are discovered.

Health Related
Numerous wrongful death claims have been brought about by health related deaths. While medical malpractice certainly falls into this category, there are other types of wrongful death lawsuits brought about by health related deaths as well. Consider the various medications taken off the market, either by the manufacturer or the FDA, which is the agency responsible for the regulation of prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

Sometimes these drugs are taken off the market after someone has died as a result of taking them and a wrongful death lawsuit is sometimes filed. There is a lot of work to be done and experts have to be called in to prove that the person who died did indeed die as a result of the drug.

Even when people die as the result of taking a drug, it is not always the drug itself that caused the death. The person could have a drug allergy or the drug could have been taken in conjunction with another drug causing a fatal side effect to occur. There are various situations in which someone could be fatally injured by taking a drug or a combination of drugs and many facts to be sorted out before the suit can be settled or adjudicated.

Air Fatalities
This type of wrongful death lawsuit has several factors to be considered. If an air fatality occurs as a result of pilot error, the wrongful death claim will be very different than if the crash occurs as a result of a defect discovered in the aircraft. There is always an exhaustive investigation conducted after such a tragedy until finally it is learned exactly how and why the accident occurred. A wrongful death lawsuit involving air fatalities could conceivably involve the manufacturer of the aircraft as well as manufacturers of other parts of the aircraft such as the engine. It could also involve the airline or operator of the aircraft.

Exactly which laws govern the wrongful death claim in an air fatality is determined by the laws of the state or country in which the tragedy occurs. Sometimes more than one state or country can be involved in cases such as these. Wrongful death lawyers are knowledgeable about which court has jurisdiction and which laws are to be applied.

Damages
Damages suffered in wrongful death claims are assessed different ways in different states but for the most part are based on financial losses and in some cases, the loss of companionship. For example, if the decedent in a wrongful death claim had a family he supported, his spouse can sue for loss of income. She may also be able to recoup medical and funeral expenses.

Pecuniary, or financial losses aren't necessarily limited to the loss of income the decedent would have earned. Even the death of a stay-at-home mom results in huge financial loss to the family who will now have to pay others for all the services she provided.

There are numerous variables in determining monetary damages and that's one reason anyone considering filing a wrongful death claim needs to retain wrongful death attorneys experienced in this type of litigation. Whether the claim is settled out of court or goes to trial, wrongful death lawyers are well educated as to all the variables and well versed on what the state laws are. For example, most states don't allow for punitive damages; those assessed as punishment to the wrongdoers in wrongful death lawsuits. However, some states do allow for punitive damages in such claims and wrongful death attorneys know whether or not they are allowed in the state in which the death occurred.

State Laws Regarding Wrongful Death Lawsuits
Wrongful death lawsuits must be filed within a certain length of time, which may differ from state to state and in most cases must be filed by a relative who has suffered damages as a result of the loss of their loved one. Each state has a statute of limitations which details the amount of time in which a plaintiff must file.

The types of loss plaintiffs can recover also differ from state to state. For example, in Texas a spouse can recover damages for loss of companionship caused by the wrongful death of his or her spouse however, in Kentucky this isn't allowed. In fact, those who lost spouses on flight 5191 aren't able to sue for the loss of their spouses under this law. If their spouses had been injured instead of killed, they would be able to recover damages for "loss of consortium".

Some of these spouses are working to update this Kentucky law and have introduced a bill, House Bill 403 which would give surviving spouses in Kentucky the right to recover damages for loss of companionship in a wrongful death lawsuit.

This doesn't mean of course that surviving spouses can't recover damages for loss of income or other financial losses in a wrongful death claim. This does however, highlight the need for experienced wrongful death attorneys as various laws can be confusing to the lay person.

Famous Wrongful Death Cases
No doubt the most famous wrongful death claim in recent years was that of OJ Simpson who was sued in civil court for the wrongful death of Ronald Goldman, the friend of his late ex-wife, Nicole Brown, who was murdered along with Goldman in 1994. Although Simpson was acquitted in the criminal case, he was found liable in the civil trial and ordered to pay more than 33 million dollars in damages.

In a more recent high-profile wrongful death claim filed in late 2006, CNN talk show host Nancy Grace is being sued for the wrongful death of Melinda Ducket, who committed suicide after an interview with Grace regarding the disappearance of Ducket's two-year-old son. The wrongful death lawsuit alleges that Grace intentionally inflicted emotional distress by grilling Ducket and insinuating that she killed her son which, wrongful death lawyers and Ducket's parents charge, subsequently led to the young woman's suicide.

On December 30, 2006, singer and actress Brandy was involved in a fatal car crash which has led to a wrongful death claim being filed against her. Brandy, who was most recently seen as one of the judges on NBC's America's Got Talent didn't notice that traffic in front of her had slowed and rear-ended a Toyota, which was driven by a woman who died later in the day from injuries sustained in the accident. The suit, filed by the woman's parents through wrongful death attorneys, charges Brandy with reckless driving, which led to the woman's death. Brandy may also face criminal charges in connection with the accident.


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