No-one is ever prepared to lose a loved one, but losing a family member in a wrongful death case as a result of someone else’s negligence is even more difficult to bear. Wrongful death accidents happen every day; thousands of wrongful death fatalities change families’ lives every single year. A wrongful death lawsuit can’t bring your beloved family member back, but it may help to offset the financial loss of income, pay for expenses associated with the death and help take care of your family in your time of need.

What is Wrongful Death?

Wrongful death is a death that occurs as a result of someone’s negligence. In wrongful death cases, the death could have been prevented had the negligent party acted with reasonable care. Examples of wrongful death cases may include:

• Fatal car accidents or large truck accidents;
• Construction site accidents;
• Industrial workplace fatality;
• Medical malpractice death;
• Defective products causing fatality;
• Pharmaceutical drug or medication that leads to death;
• Hazardous chemical spill.

Essentially, any cause of death that occurred as a result of negligence and could have been avoided may constitute a wrongful death case. The liable parties could be direct contributors, such as the person driving a motor vehicle in a car accident wrongful death case; or it could be a third-party, such as a person who performed a faulty repair on a vehicle that caused a car accident in which you lost a loved one.

Who is Eligible to File a Wrongful Death Lawsuit?

Not everyone is eligible to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Specifics may vary from state to state, but in most cases, you can only file a wrongful death lawsuit if you were immediate family to the deceased. A spouse, children, parents or siblings may be eligible to file a wrongful death claim, but non-related individuals, such as boyfriend or girlfriend, cousin, aunt or uncle or other distant relations may not be eligible to recover.

For more information on a potential wrongful death case, contact an experienced Austin wrongful death attorney to review your circumstances.