Legal Support for Families of Wrongful Death Victims in California
If someone else is responsible for you losing a loved one, you’re understandably very angry right now. After all, your family member would still be here if the person responsible just acted reasonably. But for selfish, careless, and/or evil reasons, someone else committed one or more wrongful acts, and they should have to pay the price for that misbehavior.
There will be at least two legal avenues available against the person responsible for the wrongful death of your family member (decedent). First, there are criminal punishments if the death was related to a crime, which can include restitution, probation, and prison or jail time. These are largely outside your control and up to the authority and discretion of law enforcement and the prosecutor or district attorney.
Second, there are civil remedies that may be available to you and others related to the decedent. The most prominent will be a wrongful death lawsuit, but there may be other legal options as well, such as a survival action. The goal of this article is to discuss both of these causes of action, including what they are, who can bring them, when they should be brought, and recoverable damages.
What Is a California Wrongful Death Claim?
A wrongful death lawsuit is a legal claim that an eligible plaintiff can bring to recover monetary damages following the death of someone else. This death must be the result of the defendant’s negligence, reckless, or intentional conduct.
The plaintiff must provide evidence to show that it was “more likely than not” (the preponderance of the evidence standard) that the defendant’s conduct (or lack of taking appropriate action) led to the decedent’s death.
Proving Negligence
To prove someone’s negligence caused a personal injury (which can include wrongful death), the plaintiff must show four things:
- Duty of care;
- Breach of that duty;
- Causation; and
- Damages.
A duty of care refers to a level of conduct or behavior of a reasonable person (or professional in a professional malpractice case). For example, in a car accident case, drivers are expected to comply with their duty to operate motor vehicles prudently and safely while abiding by all traffic laws and rules.
A breach of duty means the defendants failed to comply with their duty of care. Using the car accident example, someone running a red light or driving under the influence of alcohol could constitute a breach of the required duty of care.
Causation means the breach of the duty led to harm, such as the death of another person in a wrongful death action.
A plaintiff must show they suffered damages in order to justify the bringing of a wrongful death lawsuit. If the plaintiff didn’t suffer any damages despite the defendant’s wrongful conduct, the plaintiff can’t win their case if it’s based on negligence.
Proving Recklessness
Recklessness means a defendant acted in a way such that they knew (or should have known) their behavior put others at unjustifiable, unnecessary, and substantial risk. Put another way, the defendant acted with a wanton disregard for the safety of other people or property.
It may be hard to differentiate between negligent and reckless conduct, so let’s look at some examples to help illustrate.
Imagine someone gets extremely drunk, then drives a vehicle on a public road and gets into a crash with someone else. At a minimum, that driver is going to be liable for causing that accident under the negligence legal theory. However, most likely, they can also be liable for reckless conduct, too, as they knew (or should have known) that getting very drunk and driving a vehicle could cause an accident.
Contrast this with someone who gets a phone call on their mobile phone while driving. When they pick up the phone to see who it is, they take their eyes off the road for a few seconds, which results in an accident when they fail to see the car in front of them stopping suddenly. This would most likely constitute negligent, but not reckless conduct.
It’s far more likely that driving while extremely intoxicated will result in an accident than looking down at a mobile device for just a few seconds, even though both types of conduct should be avoided while driving.
Proving Intentional Conduct
For someone to be liable for an intentional civil tort, the plaintiff must show that the defendant had the intent to commit the act that led to the harm and that the defendant acted voluntarily.
In other words, this means someone acted on purpose to cause harm to another.
Who Can Recover for Wrongful Death in CA?
Not just anyone can recover damages in a wrongful death suit in California. Only certain groups of individuals will have this right, although who falls into each group depends on the facts of the case and the relationship between the decedent and the plaintiff(s).
The primary group will be the spouses (or domestic partner), children, and grandchildren of the deceased.
If there aren’t any individuals in this first group, the next group will be anyone who would be entitled to the decedent’s estate through California’s intestate statutes. These are statutes that decide who can inherit someone’s property after they die when the person who died lacks a will. This group often includes siblings and parents of the deceased.
The third group will be individuals who are financially dependent on the decedent. This can include:
- The putative spouse (someone who mistakenly, but reasonably, believed they were married to the decedent) of the decedent;
- The children of the putative spouse;
- The decedent’s stepchildren;
- The decedent’s parents; and
- Dependent minor children who lived with the decedent for at least 180 days before the decedent’s death.
Who Can Sue for Wrongful Death in California?
There are many people who can potentially recover damages in a wrongful death action, but there’s a smaller group who can actually file the lawsuit. Potential plaintiffs in a CA wrongful death action are either the personal representative of the decedent (such as an executor or administrator of their estate) or the decedent’s heirs.
Given how many people can become involved in a wrongful death case in California, there’s potential for conflict among the plaintiffs on how to divide any damages recovered from the defendant or what legal strategies to use during litigation (or whether to be involved in the litigation at all).
Depending on who has the disagreement and what it’s about, an heir can move to intervene in the case, meaning they can become a party to the case and present their own arguments instead of relying on someone else to make their arguments for them.
For situations where intervention isn’t an option and the parties can’t reach an agreement amongst themselves, the court will sometimes step in and make a decision. This is most common when the heirs can’t agree on how to distribute damages recovered from the defendant.
When Must a Plaintiff File Suit for Wrongful Death in CA?
Ideally, the personal representative of the decedent or the decedent’s heirs will file suit as soon as possible following the death of their loved one. This isn’t always practical, though, as it’s not always clear who or what caused the decedent’s death. Additionally, the plaintiff may need time to gather enough information to actually file suit.
Like other states, California has statutes of limitations that determine how much time plaintiffs have to sue. In most wrongful death cases, plaintiffs have two years from the decedent’s death to start their lawsuit.
If the wrongful death claim is based on a medical malpractice cause of action, then the plaintiff must sue either within three years of the date of injury or within one year of when the plaintiff discovered (or should have discovered) the injury, whichever occurs first. There may be exceptions that extend the amount of time to bring the lawsuit if the victim was a young child or the medical professional took steps to conceal the injury.
What Damages Can a Plaintiff Recover in a Wrongful Death Case?
The damages will always be money, but there are three main types of potential monetary damages available for recovery in a California wrongful death lawsuit.
Economic Damages
These are damages that are relatively straightforward to quantify. They include compensation for things like (the following isn’t an exhaustive list):
- Funeral and burial expenses.
- Lost financial support that the decedent would’ve been able to contribute to their family.
- Lost gifts or benefits that surviving family members could have expected to receive from the decedent.
- Lost household services the decedent would’ve provided to the family.
Non-Economic Damages
The plaintiff may also recover damages that aren’t easy to calculate and are inherently subjective, but are still losses endured. These can include, but aren’t limited to:
- Loss of the decedent’s love, comfort, care, companionship, and support.
- A spouse’s loss of intimacy with the decedent.
- Loss of training and guidance from the decedent.
Punitive Damages
Courts may award punitive damages for particularly egregious conduct. The goal of punitive damages isn’t to make the plaintiff whole or compensate them for their losses. Instead, it’s to punish the defendant and deter others from acting the way the defendant did. California only allows punitive damages in wrongful death cases if two conditions are first met:
- The defendant committed homicide, and
- The defendant has been convicted of a felony for that homicide in a criminal legal proceeding.
Whether the plaintiffs recover economic, non-economic, or punitive damages (or all three), damages are to be distributed among the plaintiffs based on how much harm they received. In other words, the recovery isn’t automatically divided equally among the plaintiffs.
What Is a California Survival Action?
In addition to a wrongful death cause of action, a representative of the decedent’s estate can sometimes bring a survival cause of action. A survival action in California belongs to the person who died, not the eligible survivors.
The point of a survival lawsuit is to allow the decedent to still take legal action, even though they’re no longer alive to do so. In other words, defendants shouldn’t be allowed to avoid legal liability simply because the victim died and can no longer bring suit themselves.
Who Can Recover Damages in a California Survival Action?
The decedent’s estate recovers any damages in a successful survival civil suit.
When Does the Decedent’s Estate Have To Bring a Survival Action in CA?
The statute of limitations for a survival action is whatever deadline would have applied had the decedent lived. In most personal injury civil cases, the statute of limitations in CA is two years. Therefore, the decedent’s estate most likely has two years to file suit. In some cases, this deadline can be extended, such as when the decedent dies within six months of the applicable statute of limitations. In this case, the estate gets a six month extension.
What Damages Can a Plaintiff Recover in a Survival Action?
The estate can recover any damages the decedent would have been able to recover had they survived the wrongful act(s) of the defendant. These damages then get added to the estate and distributed in accordance with the decedent’s will or applicable California intestate succession rules.
Other Sources of Compensation for Wrongful Death
If the defendant committed a crime that led to the wrongful death, the victim’s families may be able to seek restitution from the defendant. As mentioned earlier, California’s criminal system often orders defendants convicted of a crime to pay restitution to victims of their crimes.
If the death occurred during the course of the decedent’s job, certain family members may be able to receive death benefits through California’s workers’ compensation system.