It is impossible to overstate the pain that accompanies the loss of a loved one, especially if their death was premature, the result of a tragic accident, or stemmed from a criminal act. In a difficult time like this, it could be beneficial to seek out a compassionate personal injury attorney for help with any ensuing civil litigation.
Taking on the legal process alone might be overwhelming, not to mention it could potentially diminish your recovery. A Lima wrongful death lawyer could investigate your case and help you move forward with the best course of action for your situation.
Causes of Action for Wrongful Death Claims
Ohio Revised Statutes §2125 defines a wrongful death as any death caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of another person. Put another way, a claim for untimely death may be filed if the deceased party would have been able to bring a personal injury lawsuit and recover compensation for the negligent act committed against them, had they survived the incident in question.
Wrongful death lawsuits typically result from unintentional torts. For example, the surviving family of someone killed in a car crash would have the right to bring a personal injury action against the negligent driver who caused the wreck.
Of course, auto accidents are far from the only type of incident which could lead to a fatal and ultimately preventable accident, so they are also far from the only type of incident which could serve as grounds for a wrongful death claim. For instance, if a family member of yours passed away because they suffered a severe blow to the head from a slip or fall accident on someone else’s property, you may be able to hold that landowner civilly liable for that death based on their failure to take proper care of their land.
Likewise, if someone you love died prematurely as a direct result of substandard medical care they received from a healthcare professional, you can potentially sue in that loved one’s name for damages stemming from that wrongful death. It is worth mentioning, though, that wrongful death claims involving “medical malpractice” like this tend to be particularly complex, both because of the unique rules placed by state law on these sorts of claims and because of how difficult it can be to determine whether a doctor’s actions failed to meet the “standard of care” expected of them as a professional. Support from a knowledgeable Lima wrongful death attorney can be all but essential to achieving a favorable outcome from a claim of this nature.
What Is the Standard of Proof for a Wrongful Death Claim?
In addition to any criminal charges the state elects to pursue, a Lima attorney could bring a wrongful death lawsuit for damages like pain and suffering and loss of consortium. More specifically, they can bring forward a wrongful death claim before, during, or after related criminal proceedings, and the outcome of those criminal proceedings would have no direct bearing on the outcome of the wrongful death lawsuit.
This is because the “standard of proof”—meaning the proverbial bar that the people pursuing the claim have to clear in order to get a court to rule in their favor—for criminal cases is much higher than the one applicable to personal injury claims, including those centered around wrongful deaths. In brief, someone accused of criminal negligence or an intentional criminal act leading to someone else’s death must be proven guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” whereas that same person would only need to be proven liable for that death in civil court through a “preponderance of the evidence.”
Translated from legalese, this just means that in order for you as the “plaintiff” (the person filing the lawsuit) to convince a court that a “defendant” (the person being sued) should pay financially for losses stemming from a wrongful death, you need to present enough evidence to show that it is more likely than not the defendant is directly responsible for that death. As discussed in more detail below, though, what counts as “responsibility” in this context can change a bit depending on the circumstances.
Building a Wrongful Death Claim Based on Negligence
Most of the time, holding someone else legally liable for a wrongful death entails proving that person directly caused the death through “negligence”—or, as this page mentions above and as it is phrased in the relevant state statute, “neglect.” Under Ohio civil law, someone is legally “negligent” if they meet all four of the following criteria:
- They owed a “duty of care” to—in this case—the deceased person, meaning they had some kind of implicit or explicit obligation to act responsibly in a specific way under specific circumstances,
- They “breached” their duty of care by doing something reckless or careless
- That breach of duty was the “proximate cause” of an otherwise avoidable accident, meaning it was the single thing that played the biggest role in directly causing that accident to happen in the first place, and
- That accident was the proximate cause of an injury—or, in some cases, an illness—which directly resulted in the deceased person’s premature death
Technically, this same formula can be applied to claims built around “wrongful acts” like manslaughter or murder. In that scenario, the “duty of care” component would simply be everyone’s obligation to follow Ohio state law, and the “breach of duty” would be the illegal act they committed. Guidance from a seasoned attorney can be key to collecting, preserving, and making good use of all available evidence in order to establish negligence along these lines in relation to a wrongful death in Lima.
Holding Someone Else Strictly Liable for a Wrongful Death
In some special situations, it is possible to hold a defendant “strictly liable” for a wrongful death. Rather than proving that a specific irresponsible act was the main cause of your loved one’s death, you would just need to show that your loved one’s death occurred under circumstances where the defendant automatically held civil liability for any harm that came to that person.
This most often plays into wrongful death claims involving defective consumer products, since product liability law in Ohio holds manufacturing companies strictly liable for injuries suffered by consumers due to defects in a product’s core design, errors made during its manufacture and/or assembly, or a lack of sufficient instructions for safe use in the product’s “marketing.” However, it is also possible to hold dog owners in Ohio strictly liable for fatal injuries caused by their dog biting or otherwise attacking the deceased person, unless the attack stemmed from the dog being provoked or involved someone trespassing on the dog owner’s property.
Filing an Untimely Death Claim
Ohio state law establishes that only a personal representative of the deceased person’s estate may bring a wrongful death lawsuit to court.
As a wrongful death lawyer in Lima can further explain, a deceased individual’s “personal representative” is typically whoever they nominated in their estate planning documents to manage their financial and personal affairs after their death. However, if a wrongful death victim’s will did not contain any such instructions or if they did not have a legally enforceable will in the first place, a court can appoint someone—usually, but not always, a close family member—to fill this role.
With this in mind, the following surviving parties are presumed under state law to have suffered damages and may seek recovery in a wrongful death suit:
- The spouse of the deceased
- The biological or adopted children of the deceased
- The parents of the deceased
Siblings and grandparents of the deceased may also seek compensation under certain circumstances. Although they are not presumed to have suffered damages under state law, they have the right to prove that they suffered losses in court.
Statute of Limitations
O.R.C. §2125.02 imposes a time restriction on a representative’s right to bring a wrongful death suit. Under the statute, a wrongful death action in Lima must be filed within two years of the victim’s death, regardless of when the injury or illness which caused that wrongful death initially occurred.
Importantly, though, the “discovery rule” which applies to standard personal injury lawsuits also applies to wrongful death claims. Under this rule, if you did not discover that your loved one’s death stemmed from someone else’s misconduct until some time after their actual date of death, you can start the two-year filing period from the moment you discovered that fact. That said, you cannot use this to arbitrarily extend the filing deadline set by the statute of limitations, and if a court thinks you reasonably should have known you had grounds to sue prior to when you claim you first knew you had grounds to sue, the court may consider the two-year filing period to have started on the former date.
Failing to file a wrongful death action on time may result in the filing party forfeiting their right to seek recovery. By hiring a knowledgeable untimely death lawyer in Lima, a representative may be able to file their claim efficiently before the statute of limitations.
Recoverable Damages
There is an assortment of damages that family members suffering from the loss of a loved one could pursue in court. These may include but are not necessarily limited to:
- Emotional pain and suffering,
- Loss of support from the decedent’s reasonably expected earning capacity,
- Loss of companionship, guidance, care, education, and—for a spouse—consortium,
- Loss of future inheritance, and/or
- Loss of household services and assistance
Crucially, what all these damages have in common is that they are losses experienced by the surviving family members of a deceased person as a direct result of that person’s premature death, not damages experienced by the deceased person and/or their estate. As discussed in more detail below, damages which a deceased person experienced between their initial injury and their untimely death are recoverable through a similar but separate claim called a “survival action.”
Another thing worth mentioning is that Ohio state law does not place any “caps” on recovery for any type of wrongful death damages. Typically, when someone gets hurt through another person’s negligence, they can only demand a certain amount of money for non-economic damages like physical pain and emotional anguish unless they suffered a permanent and debilitating injury. However, there are no such limits on wrongful death claims, so it is possible to recover for the full value of all losses your family will experience due to a loved one’s untimely death with help from a Lima wrongful death attorney.
What Is a Survival Action and How Is It Different from a Wrongful Death Claim?
It is not uncommon for someone to suffer an ultimately fatal injury in an accident but not pass away the instant they first suffered that injury. Likewise, it is not unheard of for someone to suffer a non-fatal injury through someone else’s misconduct and then pass away prematurely by some other means before they have a chance to file suit over their original injury.
In both scenarios, that deceased individual’s personal representative can seek compensation on behalf of their estate for damages which they, the decedent, personally suffered but were unable to sue over themselves. This can include economic forms of harm like medical bills and funeral/burial costs paid by the decedent’s estate, as well as non-economic forms of harm like physical pain and psychological suffering. It is also possible to recover for work income the deceased person lost as a result of their injury.
Survival actions can be and often are pursued alongside wrongful death claims, and any money recovered through a wrongful death will typically be distributed to the deceased person’s beneficiaries after it goes through probate. However, the deadline set by the statute of limitations for survival actions typically falls two years after the date of the initial injury, not two years after the date of the deceased person’s death.
As a result, the effective deadlines for survival actions and wrongful death claims based on the same fatal incident can sometimes differ from each by a factor of weeks, months, or even more than a year. For this reason among many others, support from an experienced wrongful death lawyer in Lima can be vital to achieving a favorable outcome from both types of claims, especially if they both need to be pursued at once.
Contact a Lima Wrongful Death Attorney Today
If you are mourning the unfortunate passing of a loved one due to a tragic accident, it may benefit you to seek the help of an attorney. With the legal assistance of a Lima wrongful death lawyer, you could seek financial restitution for the losses associated with your family member’s death. When you are ready, call to schedule a confidential consultation.
