Wrongful death is used to describe the death of a person that’s caused by negligence or reckless of the party that’s involved. Most of the time close family members of the victim seek for claims in order to obtain financial and emotional damages caused, it may be parents, children or spouses of the deceased.
Elements Of Wrongful Death
As defined by the law there are 4 important elements of any wrongful death. Anyone that wishes to make a claim must prove one of these four elements before his claims are granted. These four elements are discussed below;
Negligence
Anyone that’s making wrongful death claim must prove that the death of the person in question was caused by either full or partial recklessness from the defending party. Before making any claim you should gather all the possible evidences that prove your loved one was killed due to recklessness.
Breach Of Duty
In order to win your case and claim you have to prove that the person that caused the death owed a duty to your loved one.
Causation
You must provide to the court the cause of death, you should define clearly what lead to the incident of death, and you should explain how the negligence of the defendant causes the death of the victim.
Damages
If the death of the person in question have lead to significant damages that need to be compensated, it should also be proved in the court. A lot of expenses might rise such as medical expenses before the victim dies, hospitalization, funeral and burial costs, loss of protection, and any other important aspect that need to be claimed.
If you want to prove any of the above points you must provide strong and convincing evidences to the court and these need to be presented by a skilled attorney who specialize in dealing with wrongful death cases.
Causes Of Wrongful Death
There are many factors that lead to wrongful death, we’ll mention some of them so that you have an idea how things work because wrongful death is a serious case which must be examined thoroughly before making any lawsuit.
- Medical malpractice.
- Product defects.
- Birth injuries.
- Automobile or motorcycle accidents.
- Criminal actions.
- Day care supervision.
- Nursing home abuse.
Wrongful death can arise in many situations, these are just a few examples, the most important thing isn’t the situation, but how the incident happens and there is the need to prove negligence or any of the other 3 elements we’ve mentioned earlier that caused the wrongful death.
Wrongful Death – Is It A Criminal Case.
Wrongful death lawsuit isn’t considered as a criminal case, it’s a civil action, and that’s why the burden is lower. In a criminal case the defendant must be guilty without any doubt, but in the case of civil action strong evidences are required in order to win your case.
In order to file a lawsuit for wrongful death there various steps that involved, this involves investigating the claim, developing a good strategy, meeting witnesses and talking to experts that can help you along the process.
How To Win Your Claims
You don’t need a lot of evidences in order to win a wrongful death lawsuit; you just need a concrete one that’s enough to support you in the court. That’s why it’s important before filing the lawsuit you should talk to a professional attorney so that he can advice you on the type of evidences you need to gather before the case begin, if you try to do things on your own you’ll end up losing the case and your damages won’t be recovered.
Choosing a skilled and experienced lawyer is a crucial step to any wrongful death claim, you have to get yourself a good attorney that has dealt with similar cases like yours, and you should search for customer reviews in order to make sure that you’ll be working with a good one.
Dealing with wrongful death claim is a complex process that’s why it’s important to choose a good attorney to help you make the right decisions at different level of the lawsuit. If you have any concern or question about wrongful death claim please contact us at Massey & Duffy to help you with your claims, we’re available to answer any of your questions we’ve helped a lot of people to file successful lawsuits in different fields. Call us now for a free consultation.
