When someone passes away directly because of someone else’s negligence, the right the deceased person would have to file a personal injury lawsuit doesn’t die with them. Instead, it can survive their death as one of two other types of personal injury claims: one that’s meant to help surviving family members recover for losses caused by their loved one’s death and one that’s meant to recover for losses the deceased person never got a chance to sue for personally.
The second kind of claim is called a survival action, and as any experienced attorney can tell you, it works a lot like a standard wrongful death claim in certain ways and differently in others. If you want to get the best possible result from this sort of case, you need help from a seasoned York survival actions lawyer with years of experience handling similar cases successfully and efficiently.
What Can You Recover Through a Survival Action?
Compared to a wrongful death claim, a survival action is more of a direct continuation of a standard personal injury claim. Someone else has to actually file the claim since the original injured plaintiff passed away before they could sue. More specifically, the personal representative for the deceased person’s estate is the only person who can file a survival action, as a York attorney can further explain if needed.
That representative, which is usually someone nominated in the deceased person’s will to manage their affairs after their death, can seek compensation for both objective financial losses and subjective personal losses the deceased person suffers between when they initially suffered an injury through someone else’s misconduct and when they passed away, such as:
- Physical pain and suffering
- Costs of medical treatment
- Emotional anguish and trauma
- Property damage caused by the accident that injured them
- Loss of life’s pleasures
- Lost wages or salary while unable to work because of an injury
Generally, it’s not possible to recover for long-term damages like lost earning ability through a survival action, but it may be possible to incorporate those kinds of losses into a related but separate wrongful death claim.
Filing Time Limits for Survival Actions
Technically, it’s possible to file a survival action even if the injury at the heart of the claim wasn’t what caused the injured person to pass away prematurely. For example, if someone gets hurt in one car crash and then passes away from a second car crash before they can sue over the initial one, their personal representative—with help from a respected York lawyer—could potentially file a survival action over the first wreck and a wrongful death claim over the second wreck.
The filing deadline for survival actions works differently than the one for wrongful death claims. While both claims are subject to a two-year filing time period, the start date for that two-year period is the date of the initial injury for a survival action, regardless of how long it took the injured person to pass away after suffering that initial injury.
Get Help from a York Survival Actions Attorney Today
If you’re the personal representative for someone who just passed away in an accident, you already have a lot of legal and financial matters on your plate without even thinking about litigation against the person who caused that fatal accident. In many situations, filing both a wrongful death claim and a survival action will be vital to protecting the best interests of a deceased person’s surviving family members.
Fortunately, you have help available from an experienced York attorney specializing in survival actions who can guide you through every step of this unique legal process. Call Ostroff Godshall Injury and Accident Lawyers to discuss your options.
