Wrongful Death Lawsuit Compensation

A wrongful death case typically involves an accidental or premature death of an individual that can be attributed to a specific cause. Depending on the specific laws that apply, obtaining compensation from an identified responsible party may or may not require demonstration of negligence on the part of the responsible party. If you've lost someone you love due to an accident or premature death due to a specific cause, see if you qualify for a wrongful death lawsuit by filling out this simple form today.

Often a two-step process is involved in wrongful death lawsuits. First, a determination regarding negligence is made, including potential contributory negligence on the part of the deceased. The result of this determination is an assignment of a percentage of responsibility for the death to the defendant. Second, a total dollar amount of compensation is determined to which the percentage assigned to the defendant is applied. Focusing on the second step of this process, the determination of the total dollar payment that would be an appropriate compensation for the loss associated with the death of the individual, can be treated as independent of any determination of negligence.

The purpose of wrongful death compensation is not unambiguous. There are legal statutes that define what the compensation should reflect, when a wrongful death has been determined, and these vary from state to state. There are also social welfare theories that suggest levels of compensation that would further various social goals, such as the optimal provision of accident prevention efforts. These often are very different from the legal requirements. This section considers the following five definitions of compensation which are often used in the law or in the economics literature:

Alternative Definitions of Compensation:

replacement of financial support lost to survivors due to premature death
a dollar measure of all support lost to survivors including financial support, household and childcare services, companionship, parental guidance, moral support, love, etc.
a dollar measure of the full loss in utility (well-being) to survivors including item (2) and any additional pain and suffering (grief) due to the loss of a loved one
compensation to the decedent’s estate for the loss of income and enjoyment of life; essentially a dollar measure of the loss in utility (well-being) to the deceased
a dollar measure of the value of a (statistical or unidentified) human life to the individual at risk, which includes financial and non-financial factors as well as concerns of the individual regarding the potential effect of his or her death on survivors

NOTE: Awards in wrongful death cases sometimes also include punitive damages, but this involves a different purpose than compensation and is not the focus of this paper.

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A wrongful death lawsuit is usually brought when the person who was killed died because of negligence on the part of the defendant. Weitz and Luxenberg has the experienced Wrongful Death attorneys you need to handle your Wrongful Death claim.