Wrongful Death Due to Medical Malpractice

Understanding Your Rights to Recover Compensation for the Death of a Loved One Due to Medical Malpractice

Medical malpractice can lead to various personal injuries. Wrongful death, irreversible and untreatable, is often deemed the ultimate injury. No action can bring back a loved one. Likewise, no sum can truly compensate a family for their loss. That’s why the law allows families to claim compensation for wrongful death due to malpractice. However, families may be shocked when defendants or insurers fight back aggressively, which is often the case.

This stems from the fact that being liable for a patient’s death can affect a practitioner’s license. Defendants often resist this vehemently. Therefore, families should hire a trusted, experienced medical malpractice lawyer. This is particularly important when the deceased was a breadwinner, leading to a substantial loss of income claim. This also holds if the injuries led to high medical bills and emergency costs.

This is especially true if a loved one stayed in a hospital or ICU for a long time. If your family has suffered a loss, our wrongful death medical malpractice lawyers can help. Find one here at Medical Malpractice Universe.

What is a Wrongful Death?

Not all accidental fatalities are considered unlawful loss of life. Even if a family feels the death was wrongful, it must fit the wrongful death definition to be actionable. Each state defines wrongful death differently, and some have specific requirements for a wrongful death lawsuit.

Typically, wrongful death results from reckless, careless, or negligent actions. If the victim had survived, they could have sued the responsible parties for personal injury. In essence, wrongful death requires negligent or intentional conduct.

What Can Be Recovered in a Wrongful Loss of Life Action?

What can be recovered in a wrongful death action depends on the damages sustained by the victim, the family, and what is allowed under the state’s laws in which the lawsuit is properly brought in.  However, some very common damages could be brought in most states, in one form or another.

Some of the most common types of damages that can be recovered in a wrongful death action include the following:

• Burial costs
• Funeral expenses
• Loss of income support (i.e., loss of the decedent’s income for a family)
• Loss of consortium
• Loss of guardianship, parental guidance, nurturing, and parental support
• Loss of consortium between a decedent and spouses
• Loss of affection between a decedent and parents, siblings, children, and other family members
• Property damage
• Emotional harm and suffering
• Punitive damages, in certain and rare expenses
• Conscious pain and suffering of a loved one prior to passing away, and
• Other damages as may be appropriate.

What is a Survivor Action and How Does it Differ From a Lawsuit Stemming from Unlawful Fatality?

Not all states allow a family to recover compensation for conscious pain and suffering, punitive damages, and other expenses that the decedent would have been entitled to bring.  Rather, these states require a family to file a survival action. Usually, this can be brought as a separate cause of action in a complaint asserting both unjust death and survival action damages, but not always.

A survival action is where a family member “stands in the shoes” of a decedent and recovers damages for the harm that the loved one suffered if they would not have passed away.  As a result, any damages arising from the actual harm to the individual becomes an asset of the estate through the survival action. 

It still allows the family to commence a wrongful death action to recover loss of income support, loss of consortium, burials costs, funeral expenses, and other harms that the family sustained.  Rather, losses suffered by the individual are brought separately.

Who Can Bring a Survival Action?

Not everyone in the family can bring a survival action or wrongful death action.  Rather, only individuals who have “standing” or the capacity to sue can bring such action.  Generally, in a wrongful death action, the right to commence an action is to the surviving spouse, surviving children, or surviving children.

Other individuals who may have a right to commence an action include siblings, dependents, and other individuals that a court may find appropriate to appoint.  Sometimes and in some states, a decedent may have previously appointed an executor or executrix to handle action in a Last Will, such as bringing a wrongful death action or survival action.

Was a Loved One Killed Due to Medical Mistakes?  Call Our Lawyers For Help

If you lost a loved one due to the negligence of a healthcare provider, you need to contact an experienced medical malpractice lawyer to learn what your rights to compensation may be.  Defendants usually aggressively defend these cases, often to protect their license and their livelihood—even after they took your loved one.  Learn how one of our wrongful death medical malpractice lawyers can help you by locating and calling one here at Medical Malpractice Universe.