When someone dies because of another person’s negligence or misconduct, the victim’s loved ones may have cause to file a wrongful death lawsuit. If you believe you have reason to file a wrongful death suit, there are several important factors that your attorney must evaluate.
A wrongful death case may be filed by a member of the deceased person’s family. If no family members exist, a personal representative of the estate may file the case. To prove the case, you must demonstrate how the defendant’s negligent or wrongful actions directly caused the death of your loved one. While your loved one’s estate may recover compensation for the wrongful death claim, you and other surviving family members may benefit from a survival action filed alongside the same case.
Get a free case review by calling our Maryland wrongful death attorneys at Rice Law at (410) 694-7291.
How to Determine If Wrongful Death Applies
Maryland, like every state, has wrongful death laws on the books. Your first step is determining whether a wrongful death claim applies to your situation. Here are some examples of wrongful death scenarios:
- Someone dies because of injuries in a car accident where the other driver was at fault.
- A doctor is negligent in caring for someone, and that person dies as a result.
- A corporation manufactures a medication or product that malfunctions in some way, causing someone’s death.
- A government agency fails to exercise appropriate oversight, and someone dies because of that negligence.
If a person or entity failed to act in a way that a reasonable person would be expected to act, or intentionally acted negligently, it could be considered grounds for wrongful death.
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim?
In general, there are two categories of individuals who may qualify: primary and secondary beneficiaries. Both categories include relatives who survived the deceased. Here is a closer look at the two types of beneficiaries:
Primary Beneficiaries
The primary beneficiaries are the surviving parents, children, and spouse of the deceased. A primary beneficiary may file a wrongful death or survival claim, and any damages are awarded solely to the primary beneficiaries.
Secondary Beneficiaries
Secondary beneficiaries include the deceased’s surviving siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins, and other relatives. Usually, secondary beneficiaries bring wrongful death or survival claims on behalf of the estate if there are no primary beneficiaries alive or willing to bring suit.
Proving a Wrongful Death Claim in Maryland
Proving a wrongful death claim requires that we prove the defendant’s negligence. Negligence is comprised of four critical legal elements, each of which must be proven for your case to succeed.
Duty of Care
First, we must prove that the defendant owed your deceased loved one a duty of care or safety. This involves a legal obligation to act in a way that keeps someone else safe, and it may vary based on the relationship between the defendant and your loved one.
A common example of a duty of care is the legal duty of all drivers to drive with reasonably safely under the current circumstances and abide by the traffic code.
Breach of Duty
Next, we must prove how the defendant breached or violated their legal duty. This could involve some action or failure to act that puts your loved one in harm’s way. Again, this varies from case to case and may be unique to your loved one’s situation.
Causation
We must prove that the defendant’s breach of their duty is the direct and proximate cause of your loved one’s death. If some other force caused or substantially contributed to the fatal accident, we might have difficulty proving this element.
Damages
The final element is damages, and we must prove that the claimed damages are real and not hypothetical injuries. Proving how your loved one died may be accomplished with medical records, and we need further proof of things like economic losses.
Wrongful Death Versus a Survival Action
Your family may also file a survival action, which involves legal claims for damages suffered by the deceased person that may survive their passing.
Who Files the Case?
Generally, the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate files a survival action. This action may include claims for damages and injuries suffered by the deceased person before their passing. For example, after a fatal car accident, a survival action might claim damages for the deceased victim’s vehicle damage, medical bills, pain, and suffering.
In a wrongful death case, the claims are for damages incurred by surviving family members and are usually filed by them.
Who Receives Compensation?
In a survival action, compensation is usually awarded to the deceased person’s estate, which may then be divided amongst beneficiaries according to probate and inheritance laws.
In a wrongful death case, damages may be awarded to the beneficiaries themselves. Damages are then distributed according to each beneficiary’s proportion of the injuries.
Check the Statute of Limitations
In Maryland, the law clearly states the time frame when a wrongful death claim may be filed.
Standard Claims
A Baltimore wrongful death or survival claim must be filed within three years of the date of the victim’s death. Any suits filed more than three years after a victim’s death will likely be thrown out after a hearing.
Medical Malpractice
It’s important to note that in the event of wrongful death caused by medical malpractice, the statute of limitations runs from the date of death. It does not date back to the time that a misdiagnosis or medical error occurred.
Governmental Entity
If you file a wrongful death case against a governmental entity, you must submit a formal notice of your claim to the appropriate governmental officer no later than 1 year after your loved one’s death. This is a shorter time than offered by the standard statute of limitations, so you must speak to an attorney quickly.
Find Out Who Can Be Sued for A Wrongful Death
Your Baltimore wrongful death lawyer will help you determine everyone who may be at fault and liable for damages in a wrongful death case. Consider the case of a fatal accident involving a drunk driver who was operating a commercial truck. In this example, the truck had faulty brakes and was traveling on a poorly lit municipal bridge. In a case like this, any or all of the following parties may be named in a wrongful death suit.
- The owner of the truck or the truck driver’s employer.
- The owner of the bar where the driver was drinking.
- The bartender who served the impaired driver.
- The truck manufacturer that made the vehicle with faulty brakes.
- The city was negligent in providing adequate lighting on the bridge.
- The doctor who treated the victim and failed to provide appropriate life-saving care.
Available Damages in a Wrongful Death or Survival Claim
In Maryland, several categories of damages may apply to a wrongful death or survival claim:
Economic Damages
- Medical bills for the victim’s final illness or injury
- Funeral and burial expenses
- Property damage costs
- Damages that account for the deceased’s pain and suffering
Non-Economic Damages
- The deceased’s lost wages and future income projections
- Damages that account for the loss of the deceased’s care and/or companionship
Maryland caps non-economic damages (damages that cannot be calculated using receipts for actual expenses) in wrongful death suits. For two or more claimants, the cap is doubled and increases each year.
Punitive Damages
Punitive damages may be available in some cases to punish the defendant for extremely bad or outrageous conduct. Generally, plaintiffs must prove that the defendant acted with “actual malice” by clear and convincing evidence. This is a tough burden to meet, and punitive damages tend to be rare.
Know What You Need to Prove in a Maryland Wrongful Death Case
In order to successfully pursue a wrongful death case, you and your lawyer must be able to prove all of the following things:
- The victim is dead.
- Death can be directly connected to some action or negligence by the defendant.
- The victim’s death caused harm to you, the plaintiff, whether through pain and suffering or actual economic loss.
- You qualify as a beneficiary under Maryland’s wrongful death law.
- The case falls within the statute of limitations.
How to File a Wrongful Death Lawsuit in Maryland
Once you have all of the information you need about who can file, who they will file against, whether the elements of the case are met, whether you still have time to sue, and how much the case is worth, it is time to actually let the rubber meet the road and file your case.
Filing the Initial Complaint
First, our wrongful death lawyers to file a complaint with the court and serve the defendant with a copy of the complaint to get the case started. In this complaint, we lay out all the information discussed above, including your grounds to sue, a description of what caused your loved one’s death, evidence, arguments as to why the defendant is at fault, and how much you are asking for in damages.
Defendant’s Answer
The court will give the defendant time to respond, and some cases are won or lost on the initial filing and the defendant’s response. If you did not have a strong case, it is possible the defense could ask for it to be thrown out, and the judge will have to agree if the burden could not possibly be met on the facts you presented or if the case is actually time-barred. Otherwise, the case will move forward.
Pretrial Motions
There may be pretrial motions involved in your case, depending on what issues are being debated. Sometimes, certain facts are not in debate, and the questions instead focus on the legal duties and responsibilities of both parties.
For example, a doctor might acknowledge that something went wrong during surgery, but they might argue that there was nothing they could have done to save the patient or prevent the complication. Courts may narrow the issues and only put certain questions before the jury.
Courts may also address certain legal questions about evidence or procedure at this stage.
Discovery
Trials are not based on who can collect the most evidence. Instead, both sides need to share evidence and turn over everything they plan to present so the other side has a fair chance to examine it.
This “discovery” stage also gives us the opportunity to request evidence in the defendant’s control, such as records, footage, or reports. We can also send them “interrogatories” to ask questions they must answer truthfully, and we can depose witnesses to record their testimony in advance.
Settlement Negotiations
After discovery, both sides have a good view of the relative strength of their cases, and most cases can be settled. If they know they will lose, the defense usually will not continue fighting through trial and will try to make a deal that saves them the expense of putting on a losing case. However, you do not have to accept a settlement offer if you do not want to.
Additional Motions
If we get through discovery with no settlement, we are likely going to go to trial. This might mean there are additional motions and issues to settle, such as whether certain statements or pieces of evidence will be allowed, which jury instructions will be used, and other technical, legal, and procedural matters our lawyers can handle.
Pretrial Conferences
At this stage, the judge might also order pretrial conferences and negotiations to encourage the parties to settle before trial. It is generally cheaper and easier for the courts if there is a settlement, and many judges even push for mediation and outside help to try to get to a settlement. Mediation might not be optional, but nothing that comes out of the meetings is binding unless you sign a finalized settlement agreement. We can always walk away and continue to trial if that is what is best.
Trial and Opening Statements
If there is no settlement, the case is scheduled for trial. We go through jury selection first, weeding out jurors who might be biased against you or who have actual knowledge about the case at hand. Once a jury is empaneled, the trial starts.
The plaintiffs go first, and we explain to the jury in our opening statements what evidence they will see and that we are asking them to find that the defendant was responsible for your loved one’s death. The defense will go next, asking for the opposite: a finding that they are not liable.
Presentation of Evidence
Both sides will then present evidence and witnesses, the opposing side will cross-examine their witnesses, and we will move to closing arguments. At this stage, we summarize the evidence and explain why the facts and evidence presented put the defendant at fault.
Jury Deliberations
The jury then deliberates – but we can still negotiate a settlement up to just before the verdict is handed down. These “courthouse steps settlements” can still end the case before the jury finalizes its decision. Once they reach a verdict, the judge hands it down and orders payment, which we can then work to collect over the next few weeks or months.
FAQs About Wrongful Death in Maryland
What is a Wrongful Death?
A wrongful death is a claim for damages related to the death of a loved one caused by another person’s wrongful or negligent actions.
Who May File a Wrongful Death Claim?
Family members, including parents, spouses, children, and others related by blood or marriage, may file a wrongful death case.
What Damages Are Available in a Maryland Wrongful Death Case?
In a wrongful death case, plaintiffs may claim various economic, non-economic, and possibly punitive damages.
What is a Survival Action?
A deceased person’s personal representative files a survival action to recover damages they incurred shortly before passing. This is distinct from a wrongful death case, as this claim is specifically for the deceased’s injuries, not the surviving family’s.
When Can I File a Wrongful Death Case?
The standard statute of limitations in Maryland requires that you file a wrongful death case within 3 years of your loved one’s date of death. This limitation period may vary based on how your loved one passed away and who you believe is responsible.
What Evidence Do I Need in a Wrongful Death Case?
Perhaps the biggest evidence in a wrongful death case is your deceased loved one’s medical records.
Choose an Experienced Baltimore Fatal Injury Lawyer
Get a free case review by calling our Maryland personal injury attorneys at Rice Law at (410) 694-7291.