When someone passes away prematurely as a direct result of someone else’s reckless, careless, or illegal misconduct, the deceased person’s close family members can seek civil compensation for the losses they’ll experience because of that death through a wrongful death action. However, this type of claim isn’t designed to recover for losses suffered by the deceased person themselves between when they were initially hurt and when they ultimately passed away from that injury.
Recovering for those types of losses requires filing a similar but separate claim called a survival action. Just like with wrongful death cases, that’s not something you’ll have an easy time doing without a seasoned attorney’s support. If you’re looking at pursuing this sort of claim on behalf of someone you’re serving as a personal representative for, you should strongly consider contacting and hiring a Lewisburg survival actions lawyer as soon as possible.
How Is a Survival Action Different from a Wrongful Death Action?
A wrongful death action is meant to recover for losses experienced by surviving family members of someone who wrongfully passed away, while a survival action is meant to recover for losses the deceased person never got a chance to sue for before they wrongfully passed away. This means a Lewisburg attorney can potentially help build a survival action claim around fatal injuries caused by someone else’s negligence, as well as non-fatal injuries the injured person didn’t have a chance to sue over before they passed away.
It’s generally not possible to file a survival action over an accident that caused instant or near-instant death since the deceased person wouldn’t have had time to experience any compensable losses. The effective filing time limit set by the statute of limitations for survival actions is two years after the injury that the claim is built around occurred rather than two years after the deceased person’s date of death, like wrongful death actions.
Building a Strong Survival Action
Because a survival action is effectively a traditional personal injury claim surviving the death of the person who would’ve had the legal right to file it, recoverable damages in survival actions are similar to those that might be factored into a traditional injury claim. This can specifically include but isn’t limited to things like:
- Physical pain and suffering
- Emotional anguish and distress
- Medical bills for care received between an accident and the injured person’s death
- Lost work wages or salary during the same period of time
- Personal property damage from the accident leading to the injury
As the person pursuing this sort of claim, you need to find evidence establishing fault for the initial accident in order to build a successful lawsuit, which may not be the same evidence that you need for a related wrongful death claim. This reason, among many others, is why having help from a skilled lawyer can be so crucial to achieving success with survival actions in Lewisburg.
A Lewisburg Survival Actions Attorney Can Help
Adding a civil lawsuit of any kind to your plate immediately after a family member’s premature death is always a stressful experience, and it can, unfortunately, be a legally complex one as well. You have support available from legal professionals who are well-known for winning cases much like yours on behalf of families much like yours.
A Lewisburg survival actions lawyer will be the ally you need to achieve the best possible outcome from this unique type of civil claim. Call Ostroff Godshall Injury and Accident Lawyers today to get started.
