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Losing a loved one can lead to some serious financial burdens. Not only will you need to pay for funeral expenses and medical bills from any medical care that your loved one received, but you will also need to account for the lost potential of future wages. Some of these costs may come out of their estate, but you might need to personally bear others. Wrongful death lawsuits can allow you to recoup some of those losses, but they do vary quite a bit from state to state. To help you get started, here are some of the key statutes to follow when it comes to wrongful death lawsuits in Florida:
Who can and cannot file a wrongful death lawsuit?
Figuring out who can and cannot file a lawsuit can get pretty tricky, but there are luckily only two categories that you need to worry about in Florida.
Firstly, the personal representative of the estate can file. The personal representative is responsible for overseeing the estate and eventually executing the will (if there is one), so it makes sense that they would also be able to protect some of the value of the estate from being lost to medical and funeral bills.
Secondly, immediate family members of the deceased can file. This means that it is very easy for children or spouses to file wrongful death lawsuits, but parents and siblings can do so as well. However, in order for a sibling to file such a lawsuit, they need to prove that they were dependent upon the deceased in some way.
How do damages work in a wrongful death lawsuit?
When it comes to damages, you first need to figure out what kinds of damages you can ask for, and then you need to determine what the caps are on those damages.
For wrongful death lawsuits in Florida, you can ask for medical bills, funeral bills, emotional suffering, loss of companionship, and loss of services as damages. This gives you quite a bit of leeway, allowing you to get almost any kind of damage covered as long as you can effectively argue it in court.
As far as damage caps are concerned, the biggest one that you need to worry about involves medical malpractice lawsuits. If your loved one did not die due to medical malpractice, then you can ask for as much money as you want, but if medical malpractice does play a role in your lawsuit, then you are restricted to $500,000 in noneconomic damages. It is important to note that economic damages are not restricted in this manner.
For more information, contact a local firm like Schlicter & Schonack LLP.
Share26 May 2016