Who Can Bring a Wrongful Death Claim in Florida?
In Florida, there is a certain statute adopted by the Legislature of the U.S. when it comes to wrongful death cases. A lawsuit for wrongful death in the state of Florida can only be brought by the personal representative of the deceased person's estate and on the side of the survivors.
The estate
This is a legal construct, typically created after someone dies, including everything the person owned. Its contents are passed on to those determined by a will, or to those to whom Florida statutes determine as next in line in the absence of a will. The estate cannot bring pain and suffering claims on behalf of the decedent in a medical malpractice claim. The damages or monetary recovery potentially available to the estate of a victim include:
- Loss of earnings
- Medical bills post-incident
- Funeral bills
Family members, known as survivors
Survivors can be part of the estate, but they are also entitled to recover different types of damages, which can often lead to more significant settlements or verdicts. The wrongful death statute in Florida defines who is a survivor, in some ways unfairly excluding those strongly affected by the death of a loved one. Family members sometimes entitled to higher damages are:
1. A surviving spouse and surviving minor children. Both the minor children and the spouse are entitled to bring a lawsuit for damages such as:
- The value of lost support and services
- Future loss of support and services
- Loss of companionship and protection
- Lost parental companionship, instruction, and guidance
- Pain and suffering
- Medical or funeral expenses
2. Surviving adult children. Children over 25 can recover funeral bills or medical bills paid by them. Also, lost support and services damages are potentially available. However, they cannot recover for lost parental companionship, instruction, guidance, and mental pain and suffering if:
- There was a surviving spouse
- Medical negligence caused the wrongful death
3. Surviving parents. Parents are not entitled to recover for their pain and suffering if:
- The departed child was over 25 when died; unless there were no other survivors
- Medical negligence caused the wrongful death
Therefore, parents of a deceased minor child may recover:
- The value of lost support and services
- Future lost support and services
- Pain and suffering
- Medical or funeral expenses
4. Blood relatives, including adoptive brothers and sisters, when they were at least partially dependent on the decedent for support or services.
The wrongful death statute in Florida has complex rules with several exceptions and exclusions.
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Common Accidents Leading to Wrongful Death
Many different types of fatal accidents are eligible for a wrongful death claim. The legal rights for family members to recover damages vary because different Florida laws apply depending on the type of accident. Cases involving incidents leading to wrongful death include but are not limited to:
Recoverable Damages In a Wrongful Death Claim in Florida
Survivors may be entitled to recover economic and non-economic damages
Economic Damages
- Medical or funeral expenses when paid by a survivor
- Lost support and services. Support includes lost contributions of both property and money. Services are the tasks that the decedent used to perform, but which now will be an expense for the survivors.
Non-economic Damages
- Loss of the decedent’s companionship and protection and parental companionship, instruction, and guidance, which cannot be calculated with any precision. Instead, this is a question completely determined by individual jury members.
- Mental pain and suffering. This is the most significant category of non-economic, intangible wrongful death damages. Just like lost companionship and guidance, the dollar value that any given jury might award for mental pain and suffering is impossible to calculate or predict.
Damages that may be recovered by the estate
- Loss of net accumulations. Regarding net accumulations, a jury must decide how much money the decedent would have left in his estate. The jury will consider both the decedent's propensity to earn and his propensity to save when calculating net accumulations. Finally, future net accumulations are reduced to the present value.
- The decedent's lost earnings.
- The decedent’s medical and funeral expenses.
Wrongful Death Claim in Miami: Who May Be at Fault?
Wrongful death claims in Miami can be brought against a wide variety of companies, individuals, and government agencies. In many instances, more than one person or entity may be at fault for the death of a family member. Wrongful death claims may be filed after death occurred due to the negligence of another individual or product or work equipment. Incidents of wrongful death are accidental. However, someone is responsible for the damages, injuries, and deaths that occur due to carelessness.
Almost 200K people die from fatal injuries annually, the equivalent of about one person every three minutes. Many of them, about 37K each year and nearly 101 people every day of the year are traffic fatalities.
In Miami, almost 300 people die in car accidents each year, about 50 victims being pedestrian fatalities and 10 being bicycle fatalities.
If a loved one was killed in a car accident when a drunk driver struck him or her, possible defendants in your wrongful death claim might include:
- The guilty chauffeur or employer in the automobile accident
- The drunk driver’s insurance company
- The persons who sold served, or gave alcohol to the impaired driver, if the driver was a habitual drinker or an underage person
- The owner of the premises where the alcohol was served, if the driver was an underage person
- The producer, wholesaler, or installer of a defective or dangerous part of the vehicle
- Construction companies or roadway designers if a steep curve or other roadway defect worsened the injuries
- Municipalities, if road defects, improper maintenance, or other road conditions played a role in the accident
- Government agencies, if a failure to warn of road hazards factored into the accident
Statistics regarding traffic accidents where a big rig is involved portray a harsh image of victims of collisions. The U.S. Department of Transportation informs that more than a half-million truck accidents occur each year. These accidents cause around 5K deaths annually, which represent 12% of all traffic-related deaths. Florida's roads saw more than 4.4K fatal traffic accidents annually in recent years, with an average of nearly 350 involving trucks. Drivers are directly liable for the crashes they cause. However, when truck crashes occur, depending on the details of the case, there may be more than just the drivers who are held accountable for being at fault.
Liability might also apply to:
- The company the driver works for
- The company that loaded the truck
- The company the load is being delivered to
In some cases, truck drivers travel in teams. One person drives the truck while the other person rests and then they switch. When a truck crash involves a co-driver, this person may also be able to sue the driver and the trucking company, if he or she was injured in the accident.
Medical malpractice is a broad category of types of legal action including misdiagnosis, surgical, care and medication errors, etc. Medical malpractice cases are lengthy and complex processes, with long investigations and complicated proofs. Studies conducted by the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) show that one in five medical errors are potentially serious or even fatal.
In the United States, medical errors are the third cause of death, leading to at least 250K deaths every year. In a medical malpractice claim, the following parties may be possible defendants liable for causing the death:
Reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in Florida almost 300 people suffer each year fatal occupational injuries. The highest rates of workplace fatalities keep natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations atop the list of America's most dangerous jobs with an estimated one in every five worker deaths being in construction. In the construction industry, the leading causes of worker deaths are slips and falls, followed by being struck by an object, electrocution, and caught in/between. If a death occurs due to a workplace accident and a third party other than the employer is to blame, you may file a wrongful death action against that party.
Examples of potentially liable parties in a wrongful death claim following a workplace accident include:
- The manufacturer of a dangerous or defective piece of machinery that caused the accident
- A third-party contractor or employee from another company
- The owner of a property where the accident occurred failed to remedy a hazardous condition that caused the accident and death
- Any other third party whose negligence caused the accident
According to CPSC statistics, dangerous or defective products, from malfunctioning auto parts to faulty medical devices, result in nearly 3 million injuries and 22K fatalities every year in the US.
Any type of manufactured product on the market can be dangerous or defective including foods, cosmetics, toys, and more.
In product liability cases, compensation may be recovered from either the manufacturer, distributor, or retailer. Anyone in a product’s chain of distribution could potentially be liable for an injury. A chain of distribution is anyone who has handled a product from the time it left the manufacturer’s warehouse to the time in which it was stocked.
