Losing Someone You Love Is Devastating. Here's What a New York Wrongful Death Case Can (and Cannot) Do for Your Family
If you're reading this, there's a good chance you've just lived through the worst thing a person can go through: the loss of someone you love. And not just any loss, a loss that happened because someone else didn't do what they were supposed to do.
I want to start by saying something I tell every family that walks into my office: no lawsuit can ever replace a life. It can't undo what happened, and it can't fill the empty chair at the table. I've been practicing personal injury law for almost 30 years, and I have never once pretended otherwise.
But a wrongful death case can do something. It can provide a path forward toward accountability, toward closure, and toward the financial stability your family may desperately need now that the person you depended on is gone. It's a way of making sure that what happened isn't simply swept under the rug. Here's what you need to understand if you're considering it.
What a Wrongful Death Case Actually Is
A wrongful death case arises when a person dies because someone else failed to act with reasonable care, or engaged in conduct that was negligent, reckless, or even intentional.
It's not just a legal claim. It's a recognition that a life was cut short because someone didn't do what they were supposed to do. In practical terms, almost any personal injury situation that results in a death can become a wrongful death case.
Such cases can arise out of:
Motor vehicle collisions - car crashes, truck accidents, pedestrian knockdowns
Medical malpractice - misdiagnoses, surgical errors, medication errors, failures to monitor
Nursing home negligence - falls, infections, dehydration, malnutrition, untreated and/or improperly treated pressure ulcers
Construction and workplace accidents - falls from heights, unsafe equipment, missing safety devices
Dangerous or unsafe premises - even something as ordinary as a fall on a staircase
Defective products and criminal acts
In every one of these cases, the central question is the same: Was someone's negligence or wrongdoing a substantial factor in causing and/or contributing to another person’s death?
Who Can Actually Bring the Case (This Surprises Almost Everyone)
This is one of the most misunderstood parts of the law, so please read it carefully.
New York does not allow just any grieving family member to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Only the personal representative of the decedent's estate can bring the case.
That means one of two people:
If your loved one passed away with a will, the executor named in that will can bring the lawsuit.
If your loved one passed away without a will, someone has to be formally appointed by the court to represent the estate. That person is called the administrator (or administratrix) - usually a surviving spouse, child, parent, or in some cases another dependent or family member.
If no representative has been appointed, a wrongful death lawsuit simply cannot move forward. The family has to first bring a proceeding in Surrogate's Court to have someone appointed.
I mention this because it's often the very first place we help a family, guiding the right person through the process of getting appointed so the case can even begin. It's a step a lot of people don't realize is required, and it's one of the reasons these cases need to be handled carefully and strategically from day one.
What You Can and Cannot Recover in New York
This is where I have to be honest with you, because New York's law is harsher than most people expect.
What the estate can recover falls into two buckets.
First, the damages your loved one personally sustained before passing, things like their conscious pain and suffering, medical expenses, lost earnings, pre-impact terror, and loss of enjoyment of life.
Second, and this is the part that catches families off guard, the recovery for surviving family members is limited to what we call pecuniary damages, i.e. financial damages, only.
Pecuniary damages include:
The financial support your loved one was providing
The value of household services they performed
Loss of parental guidance for minor children
Funeral and burial expenses
Medical expenses
Now here's the part that, frankly, I find devastating after almost three decades of doing this work.
New York is one of only a small handful of states in the entire country that does not allow surviving family members to recover for their grief, their loss of companionship, or their emotional loss, the real, human devastation of losing someone you love. That suffering, as profound as it is, is simply not compensable in New York.
We have been fighting to change this for as long as I've been practicing. A bill to change the law, known as the Grieving Families Act, has reached the governor's desk three years in a row. And three years in a row, it has been vetoed. So, the law, sadly, remains one of the most restrictive in the nation when it comes to compensating wrongful death victims.
I tell you this not to discourage you, but because you deserve to walk in with clear eyes. A family that loses its wage earner, its caregiver, the backbone of the household, is morally entitled to far more than New York currently allows. Until the law changes, our job is to recover everything the law does permit and to fight for every dollar of it.
Why These Cases Matter Beyond the Money
When you lose a loved one, the emotional impact is overwhelming. But the financial impact can be just as crushing, especially when the person who passed was the one supporting the family.
A wrongful death case can help replace the lost income your loved one would have earned, cover the medical bills you've been left with, secure your family's financial footing, and hold the negligent party accountable for the harm they caused.
It's not about putting a price on a human life. That can't be done, and I would never suggest otherwise. It's about protecting the living and demanding accountability from those who caused this loss in the first place.
One More Thing: These Cases Are Time-Sensitive
Wrongful death cases are complex, they are emotional, and they are governed by strict deadlines. Unlike ordinary personal injury cases, which can generally brought in three (3) years, the statute of limitations for wrongful death cases is only two (2) years. And before such a lawsuit can even be brought, a representative of the decedent’s estate has to be appointed. Waiting too long can cost a family its ability to recover at all.
You Don't Have to Navigate This Alone
If you've lost someone because of another person's negligence, please know this: you do not have to figure it out by yourself, in the middle of the worst moment of your life.
At Kramer, Dunleavy & Ratchik, PLLC, we stand with families during what are often the hardest days they will ever face. We'll investigate what happened, work to uncover the truth, and fight for the justice your loved one deserves.
Call us. Talk to us. Let us help carry this. (212)226-6662
— Jonathan R. Ratchik, Kramer, Dunleavy & Ratchik, PLLC
Real bow ties. Real results
(Attorney Advertising)
Comments