What Types of Financial Damages can You Sue for in a California Wrongful Death Lawsuit?

A surviving spouse can uniquely claim a loss of consortium with the departed because of the general conception of pecuniary loss. Consortium damages include typical aspects of the marriage relationship such as companionship, guidance, and sexual relations. Similarly, kin that were not married to the decedent can claim a loss of society that is similar to a consortium loss. Your Orange County wrongful death attorney can discuss what damages are relevant in your case and are eligible to file for in the state where the lawsuit will take place.

There are specific elements you must plead and demonstrate in a California wrongful death case in order to succeed at trial or settlement. They mirror other kinds of cases, like negligence actions, but differ in certain regards as well. This might seem obvious but you have to show a body; you have to point out that someone died. Then, you need to highlight how the defendant’s misconduct caused that death. Finally, you need to illuminate how the death caused the surviving next of kin specific or general damages. How you get to each of these elements changes with every case because they’re all different. However, it is important to remember that no matter how unique your case is, it still must fit within the umbrella of this wrongful death suit structure.

Rather than give clients a specific number, we try and offer them a number of things to think about when they are trying to estimate what they can get in a California wrongful death case. First, how long can you afford the trial to go on for? What kind of expenses did the death incur you? Was the decedent working at the time of his or her death? Was the decedent in any way responsible for the incident that led to her or her death? All of these questions should factor into your analysis of case worth. After pondering them for some time, you should speak with an experienced attorney to identify what you could potentially recover in court or settlement for your California wrongful death case.

As hard as we try to avoid the subject, we realize that numbers matter. Especially when you’re talking about what a wrongful death case could be worth in California, figures about past case awards do show families what the value of a trial is. Since 1990, the median recovery for families pursuing recovery is about $200,000. The average, though, is much more than that and typically reaches over $1,000,000. Also, nearly one-third of claimants receive more than $1,000,000 in compensation. Finally, California sees a vast amount of all the wrongful death cases in the country. In fact, this could be related to why many of the awards and settlements are so high.

It can be useful to compare California facts and figures about wrongful death litigation to those around the country. The median recovery for the nation is a bit higher than California’. Plaintiffs in the other 49 states receive about $250,000 and average well north of $1,000,000 since 1990. However, not as many plaintiffs obtain sums higher than $1,000,000. Where that number is one-third in California, it is only one-fifth nationally. Also, on average, the other states see a little bit less wrongful death litigation than California does.