Before talking about the worth of a wrongful death lawsuit, it is important to know what can bring about a wrongful death lawsuit. Wrongful death takes place when one individual loses their life due to the ignorance of another individual.
It does not have to be something as major as an individual encountering an accident and dying because the driver was intoxicated.
It can be negligence as mere as your restaurant server providing you with a sandwich, and you get poisoned because the bread or any other ingredient has poisonous content inside it.
If you die out of an allergic reaction after specifically telling your water what not to include in your food and they ignore it, then your family can rightfully file a wrongful death lawsuit against them.
As sad as it might sound, the wrongful death of your loved one might have been brought about due to the negligence of a police offer.
Wrongful death by police takes place when they confuse you with the individual they are searching for. They might have a shoot-at-sight order for that guy, and they might have shot your loved one mistakenly.
If you are wondering about who can file a wrongful death lawsuit, then it has three different categories only. Only the parents, kids, and spouses of the deceased can file a wrongful death lawsuit. These are the close relations of the deceased only.
When talking about how much a wrongful death lawsuit can be worth, it has a very wide range. You can get anything less than a few thousand dollars or even an amount as high as 10 million dollars. It really depends on a number of factors which will be discussed in this article.
If you have recently lost a loved one out of similar circumstances and thinking of filing a wrongful death lawsuit, then we would advise you to keep reading. Discussed below is the number of factors that a lawsuit’s worth may vary.
Factors Affecting a Wrongful Lawsuit Worth
Multiple factors can determine how much the filed lawsuit is going to be worth, and these are:
The intensity of pain endured by the deceased:
Your loved ones might have lost their lives in the most painful way possible. For example, if their doctor injects the wrong injection, which gives them immense pain.
Another example can be a traumatic life-taking accident because someone else was overspeeding. If that is the case, your lawsuit would have a very high worth.
Costs associated with saving the life of the deceased:
Your loved one might have to undergo major surgery, the hospital expenses might be really high, several travel expenses in search of the best hospital might take place, etc. This also includes all the expenses that were incurred after their demise.
The funeral expenses, church expenses, burial, etc., everything needs to be paid for. The more expenses you have incurred, the more worth would be of the lawsuit.
Economic downturns of the deceased family:
The deceased might be the breadwinner of that family. The only source of income might be coming from their job. If the deceased is, e.g., married, has 3-4 kids, etc., you would have to cover their economic losses.
It would be really cruel of us to ask them to bury their loved ones and also start earning from the very next day to run the house. Their house might have been destroyed. If they die in an accident and their car is completely destroyed, you have to pay for it all.
Non-monetary expenses took place:
This includes all the pain, mental trauma, emotional pain, and misery you have brought to the family of the deceased. You have to pay for it all.
Let’s say the deceased was a minor and their parents are seeking therapy, or the deceased was a father or husband; you have to provide for the emotional distress that you have caused them. This even includes loss of companionship or the loss of enjoyment of life.
The behavior of the defendant towards it:
It is said that we live in a world where most people are extremely cruel and selfish. If throughout the trial, the defendant took an oath and went against it by uttering nothing but lies, the court would obviously resent them a lot more. They would then increase the worth of the lawsuit because of this as well.
The decision of the Jury:
There might be a possibility that the jury might reduce the worth of the wrongful death lawsuit. This can take place if they think that the negligence of the deceased was also a major contributing factor that led to their death.
This can be explained with the help of an example. Let us assume that you lost your loved one in a road accident.
The truck driver might be intoxicated, but you might be coming from the wrong side as well. This would make it as much your loved one’s fault as the fault of the intoxicated truck driver that someone lost their life.
A number of people sued for wrongful death:
This might be the strongest determinant of the wrongful death lawsuit worth. When someone dies due to the negligence of another human being, we need to see the cause of death.
After that, we need to see how many people are involved in causing the death of the deceased. This can be explained with the help of an example. If you lost your loved one due to an accident as the driver of the truck that crashed into them was intoxicated, then you would not only sue that truck driver.
You would sue the company that the truck driver belongs to. You can sue all the road police officers in that area who were unable to identify a drunk driver. You can even sue the person who intoxicated the truck driver at that time.
You can definitely sue the person who made the truck he was driving as well. So, it is basically a pattern. The more people that are involved in the case, the more would be the worth of your wrongful lawsuit. However, bear in mind that, under any circumstances, the accused is still entitled to a DUI defense attorney to help them defend against the validity of the accusation.
If you lost your loved one through wrongful death, please accept our deepest condolences. Make sure you hire a strong attorney to fight your case.
The defendant would not go easy on you with their lies and activities of sabotaging the worth of the lawsuit. If you have experienced something similar or if you have any more information on this topic; do let us know in the comments section below.