When a loved one dies, it’s always difficult to handle. Your sense of loss can be compounded, however, when you know that their death was the fault of another and entirely avoidable.
In those situations, you may want to consider a wrongful death lawsuit and, possibly, a survival action.
What’s a wrongful death claim?
Essentially, a wrongful death claim recognizes that the close relatives of someone who has been killed are likely to suffer significiant material and non-material damages after their loved one’s death.
While money cannot restore their loved one to them, it can help with expenses related to things like:
- The lost wages and financial support that loved one would have provided their family
- The loss of the personal services they might have provided their parents and spouse
- The loss of the guidance and love they would have provided their children
- The mental distress and grief that family members suffered over their death
- Reasonable funeral and burial expenses
What’s a survival action?
Often, people who are killed in tragic accidents or after someone’s violent actions don’t die immediately. Instead, they have to endure significant pain, suffering and fear as they approach their deaths.
If they had lived through the events that killed them, those people would have had every right to pursue a personal injury claim – and that right does not die with them. A survival action allows the deceased’s close family members to take up that claim on their behalf.
It’s hard to find the strength to carry on when you’re grieving, but Louisiana law only allows you one year to take these kinds of actions, and that may be the only possible way to get any real closure or justice for your loved one.
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