Survival Action & Wrongful Death
Brian O Sutter
Wrongful Death
One of the worst things that can happen to any family or group is losing a loved one through a senseless accident that could have easily been prevented. When someone else’s negligence, carelessness or sheer recklessness takes someone away, even if it is accidental—or perhaps especially if it is accidental—there should be consequences. No one should be responsible for causing the death of another person and simply be allowed to walk away and resume his or her life than the lives of others have been irreparably altered due to this loss.This is where an accident lawyer helping with a case, such as wrongful death can make a big difference. But not all situations are as simple as the tragedy of a loss of a life. Things do not always play out as a binary scenario of a person either surviving or not surviving an accident. And that’s when things can get complicated, which is why we’re going to look one of the more complex and upsetting legal situations, the survival action, and how it compares to wrongful death.
Delayed Reaction
There may be some cases where a terrible accident occurs and the victims of the accident survive. Of course, this situation—at least in the beginning—seems simple, especially if it’s a clear case of negligence or carelessness. In such instances, an accident lawyer will deal directly with the survivor, and work to put together a personal injury case that will go to court for compensation. While all of this is happening the survivor, even if they are alert and able to communicate, may still require some time to physically recover in the hospital.
However, some medical conditions do not guarantee a recovery even after hospitalization. People caught in fires, for example, can get to the hospital and still die at a later date because of their burn wounds. Or complications can arise from a diagnosis of traumatic brain injury that results in the development of new, more lethal symptoms further down the line.
In these rare, but tragic instances, people may find themselves in a situation where the person originally injured had started a personal injury case, with a sincere desire to seek justice, but then did not live long enough to take part in the trial.
Carrying On
In the event that a person who was pursuing a personal injury case should not actually live to see the case go to court, a “survival action” is available to the survivors to see that case be resolved. There can be a lot of different ways that such a survival action is carried out. For example, perhaps an elderly loved one slipped and fell while shopping, and received typical injuries such as hip damage. The person then decided to sue the shopping mall for personal injury, but just a few weeks before the court date suffered a stroke or heart attack. In this case, as well, survivors have the option to take up a survival action.
In more upsetting cases, a person may be injured by one accident, decide to go to court for that, and then be struck down by another accident. Now the survivors may have the option of undertaking a survival option for the original accident, while also pursuing wrongful death for the most recent accident.
Simple Justice
A wrongful death case is, unfortunately, a much simpler legal affair to handle. In this case, gross negligence or recklessness results in someone else’s death. The most common and tragic example of this is distracted driving, where some drivers would rather shoot videos of themselves singing than pay attention to the road, resulting in car accidents that may lead to fatalities.
For a wrongful death case, it is up to the surviving family members and friends to see the case through from beginning to end. Here, instead of going to court for costs such as medical recovery, or lost wages, the surviving family members focus instead on funeral costs, grief, pain, suffering, and, of course, the financial compensation that is required for depriving a household of an active financial participant for all time. While the victim of wrongful death can’t be brought back, a successful wrongful death case means that the people most affected by this loss have financial compensation from the parties responsible for the death. Even if there’s no criminal punishment for a death, at least the courts can still hold the people at fault financially responsible.
We Can Help
All Injuries Law Firm specializes in all forms of unfair injury and death. Whether you are taking up the fight again because someone close to you didn’t live to see their due date in court, or because you lost someone tragically and quickly to someone else’s carelessness, we can make a difference. Talk to us about your situation and let us help.