People generally expect to spend the rest of their lives with their spouses and for their parents to live well into their golden years. They depend on their closest loved ones for social, practical and financial support. Unfortunately, many people in Georgia eventually receive the unfortunate news that someone in their immediate family has died unexpectedly. An unexpected death can cause a host of challenges for someone’s household. Often such situations involve an outside party that is to blame for someone’s untimely death. Car crashes, defective products and criminal activity are among the circumstances that might deprive people of a loved one far earlier than they expected.
The law in Georgia allows those affected by someone’s untimely and preventable passing to initiate a wrongful death lawsuit in the civil courts against the parties responsible for the death. The goal is to provide dependent family members and the estate of the deceased with appropriate compensation.
Loved ones can recover the full value of their losses
The closest family members of the person who died are the ones that will likely suffer the most lasting and significant impact from their passing. The state therefore allows them to seek the full value of the their losses in a wrongful death lawsuit.
That value can include someone’s lost earning potential, as well as the care and support that they would have provided to the family. Typically unpaid services provided around the home can have a value that adds up to many thousands of dollars annually, particularly if the family must hire professionals to provide those services. Calculating future wages, including the value of benefits and likely future raises or promotions can help families maximize how much they seek in a wrongful death lawsuit.
It is also possible to claim certain costs for the benefit of the deceased party’s estate. Their final medical bills and funeral costs can also be part of the wrongful death lawsuit. Accurately calculating the whole value of a family’s losses is a key step to maximizing the compensation that may be awarded in a Georgia wrongful death lawsuit.
