We want to give our deepest condolences if you have recently lost a loved one due to wrongful death. This kind of tragedy not only brings unnecessary pain and suffering to your loved one but also shakes your monetary stability. It can be devastating to lose your relationship with your child or a spouse’s financial support to somebody else’s reckless behavior.
Our team wants to explain how to prove wrongful death, so your family’s finances do not have to suffer from losing a loved one. Although the court system is intricate, and you may not understand where to start if you just lost a loved one, we want to show you how to get started. And it begins with proving the killer guilty, which you will present on the judge-appointed court day.
What is a Wrongful Death Lawsuit?
Unlike a murder or homicide criminal case, where you sue the other person so they face severe consequences in prison, wrongful death deals with financial ramifications. The defendant may have taken your loved one’s life, but they had no malicious intent. The law’s goal is to compensate your family for the ways your family member’s or friends’ death affects your ability to pay your bills. They seek to refund you for the suffering you have endured as a result of their wrongful act.
Wrongful death cases can deal with various situations, such as car accidents and medical malpractice scenarios. For example, your loved one may have been driving through a luminescent green light at a regular four-way, but an 18-wheeler shot straight through them, killing them in an instant.
You can file in court for these extreme circumstances on your own or with a wrongful death attorney if you can prove you and your family were financially dependent upon the individual. Familial bonds through a son or daughter, spouse or partner, grandchild or close relative help make you eligible for compensation.
What Do You Have to Prove?
You will be tasked with the burden of proof in a wrongful death case, even if another person caused your family member or friend’s death. This fact means that you will have to construct several different arguments to answer questions the judge and jury will ask, proving that the defendant was guilty. Filing a wrongful death claim without the proper support in court will not earn you the compensation or justice you seek.
These include establishing that the defendant owed your loved one a “duty of care” and that they breached the duty of care. Similarly, you need to show through concrete case evidence that their breach of the deceased person’s duty of care caused their death and that you suffered financial troubles because of it.
The killer owed your loved one a duty of care
The first thing you must prove to receive a wrongful death settlement for filing a lawsuit is that the plaintiff was supposed to abide by a duty of care. These are legal or moral standards they should have followed to ensure your loved one was not harmed. In many wrongful death cases, the killer owed these duties to other potential victims too, but your family member or friend was the one they hurt.
The truck driver owed your loved one the duty of care to pay attention to the road rather than blow through a stop sign with our 18-wheeler accident. They also needed to follow the speed limit if they had sped faster than they should have gone.
The killer breached that duty of care
You not only have to prove that the killer owed your loved one a duty of care but also demonstrate to the court through evidence that they trampled on it. The judge will not take your word for it alone, especially since you carry the burden of proof as the plaintiff.
Dashcam footage, eyewitness testimony from outside the semi-trailer crash, and other significant justifications can bolster your case and sway a judge to compensate you for unnecessary financial burdens.
The duty of care’s breach caused your loved one’s death
Other variables may be involved in your loved one’s death besides just the defendant’s breaching of their duties of care. A common occurrence in our 18-wheeler scenario is if your family member or loved one already had life-threatening conditions before the accident. The court may rule that the breach of the duties of care did not end your loved one’s life, and they will not hold the “killer” totally responsible. Or they might not have to pay anything at all.
You can supply the same accident evidence from before to show your loved one’s cause of death. But you may also need updated medical records and other information to disprove any oppositions from the other lawyer. The judge will review all of the facts from both your side and the defendant’s to determine where causation was. Even if the case facts were all true, they would have to piece together who is at-fault.
You suffer as a result of your loved one’s death
Since wrongful death cases involve financial compensation for your loved one’s death, you will have to show how their passing has made you suffer. We have witnessed clients have absolute proof for duties of care, those duties being breached, and causation, yet they had no grounds for harm that constituted compensation.
However, “harm” in this sense does not always mean lost financial support and funeral costs, since the law also recognizes a loss of consortium, emotional trauma, mental illness, and pain and suffering as other legitimate factors they need to pay you for.
We Can Take Your Burden of Proof
Securing compensation from your wrongful death case involves proving the killer guilty, but the courts require very nuanced evidence. It can be challenging to try to prove your loved one’s killer guilty while also grieving their death, taking care of your family, and being your home’s breadwinner. Grieving the loss of someone you love dearly should never be done in a distracted form, especially when you have peace that justice will come.
We have an expert team of wrongful death lawyers that have recovered over $850,000,000 in total settlements and have what it takes to prove wrongful death in your situation. While you have tons of other burdens on your plate, we want to take the burden of proof away from you so you can rest and recover, healing from their death and finding meaning in it. You can get started today and share your case details by calling our office at 334.269.3230.
It would be our honor to be your personal representative in court and give you a free consultation with our personal injury lawyers.