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If you are injured due to someone else’s recklessness, the law allows you to recoup compensation by filing a personal injury lawsuit. If your loved one lost their life under these circumstances, a wrongful death attorney could help you file a fatal injury claim based on the same negligent acts the personal injury claim would have been based on.
The process for determining negligence in Montgomery wrongful death claims mirrors that of personal injury claims. Although the compensation available differs between compensatory and punitive damages, your family may be eligible to initiate a wrongful death suit and be awarded punitive damages. Our attorney at the Law Office of Dwayne L. Brown has 31 years of experience obtaining compensation for families after devastating losses.
Under state law, every person has a duty to behave like a reasonable person to avoid harming others. For example, a reasonable motorist follows traffic rules and state statutes, such as those addressing impaired driving, to avoid causing an accident.
Failing to uphold this duty is a breach and is considered negligent grounds for a lawsuit, especially when that breach leads to someone’s death. The defendant’s duty and breach of that duty are two of the four elements an attorney must establish to prove negligence in a Montgomery wrongful death case. To support this assertion, an attorney could gather evidence, such as police reports, video footage, expert witness opinions, eyewitness statements, and more.
A negligence claim can only succeed if your attorney proves two types of causation: the cause-in-fact and the proximate cause. The cause-in-fact is the actual cause of the death of your loved one. The proximate cause refers to the foreseeability of the consequences based on the defendant’s actions. For example, a speeding drunk driver slams into a car stopped at a traffic light, killing the driver, which the drunk driver should have foreseen could happen.
However, if a driver is in an accident and their spouse observes the crash, trips on the sidewalk, and sustains a fatal brain injury, the drunk driver could not have foreseen that outcome. For steadfast guidance on determining negligence in a wrongful death case and access to expert medical assistance and reconstructionists, you can call Montgomery attorney Dwayne L. Brown now.
Damages are the losses the plaintiff suffers as a result of the defendant’s actions. They may include physical, financial, and emotional injuries or property that has lost value because of the defendant’s acts, such as a totaled car in a vehicle crash.
As opposed to actual and subjective losses determined by the jury in personal injury cases, wrongful death claims involve punitive damages that punish the defendant for egregious behavior to dissuade them from acting badly in the future. The degree of negligence can affect the amount a jury awards, and there are no caps on these awards in Alabama. However, establishing negligence is crucial to winning these damages in a Montgomery wrongful death case.
Like personal injury claims, wrongful death claims are based on the negligence of the perpetrator. If your loved one would have been eligible to file a personal injury claim, your family is eligible for a personal representative to file a wrongful death claim. However, your attorney must be able to prove the four elements of negligence.
At the Law Office of Dwayne L. Brown, our attorney thoroughly understands duty, breach, causation, and damages and is prepared to build an ironclad case to win the largest punitive damage award possible for your circumstances. Contact us today for help determining negligence in Montgomery wrongful death claims.
