Have you lost a loved one due to the negligence of another person and have questions about how to win your wrongful death claim? Call us now!
Selecting an Attorney
If you have a wrongful death claim in Florida, you’ve obviously lost a loved one, so hiring the right attorney is a very important thing to do. We had a lady come in who had lost her husband as a result of a motorcycle accident. She had consulted with a couple other attorneys and, actually, another attorney took on the case initially. Pretty early on in the case, there were some facts that came up – that potentially the motorcycle was speeding a bit and there were potentially some other things the motorcyclist did to be partially at fault – so the other attorney really cooled on the case and didn’t want to handle it. The lady came to us and we ended up handling the case.
Those sort of things don’t dissuade us. We still want to get justice for our clients. We understand every case isn’t going to be perfect and have all the right facts. When somebody loses a loved one, even if there are some difficult facts, we’re still willing to pursue that case. In this case, we ended up getting a very favorable result for the client, much more money than she thought possible.
It’s really important to hire an attorney in a wrongful death case that understands all of the damages, understands that they have to do an appropriate investigation, understands that some bad facts don’t mean it’s a bad case and that those bad facts can be used to your advantage in a way to try to maximize the value of the case. Our firm has been handling wrongful death cases, where folks have lost a loved one, for almost 60 years. We are skilled in that area. We handle these cases often, and we’d be happy to speak with you if you’ve lost a loved one and you have a wrongful death case.
Filing a Claim
The wrongful death action in Florida is brought by the personal representative of the estate. A deceased person cannot bring their own wrongful death case. A family member doesn’t bring a wrongful death case directly in that person’s name. It would be the personal representative of the estate. Our law firm actually has an estate department that can set that estate up, which makes it easier on you because you don’t have to hire multiple different law firms.
Our law firm will set up the estate, name a personal representative. Usually there’s an agreement amongst family members that it would be one of the family members, but sometimes the family members feel stressed out and don’t want to be involved in that regard, so we can have an attorney act as the personal representative of the estate. It’s really whatever is best for the family of the deceased because the family is grieving and going through a lot, so we want to try to help make this is as easy as we can on them and do what they want to do to make them comfortable.
If there’s a wrongful death case, the personal representative brings that case. Our law firm can set that up, and then also handle the wrongful death action. If you have a loved one that you’ve lost because of a wrongful death case, please feel free to reach out to us so we can help you.
Wrongful Death Claims
The most important thing to know about a wrongful death claim in Florida is that the insurance company is probably going to try to deny the claim or defend the claim; that is what they do to try to wear down on the family members that have lost their loved one. You need to hire the appropriate attorney that can handle the case, that has an understanding of the value of the case and has the assets to be able to push that case forward and fight the insurance company, and or firm has that.
We’ve been around for nearly 60 years. Our law firm handles these sort of cases all the time. We have board-certified civil trial attorneys who try wrongful death cases, and the insurance companies know that. The number one thing is to understand that because there is substantial value in wrongful death cases, the insurance company is likely going to try to beat you down. We don’t let that happen when we’re involved in a case. If you’ve lost a loved one and you have a wrongful death case, we’d be happy to consult with you and happy to help you in that regard. Please feel free to reach out to us.
Available Damages
In a wrongful death claim in Florida, there are many different sorts of damages. We have family members of a deceased loved one come to us and ask us, “What can we recover in damages if we have a wrongful death case?” The Wrongful Death Act tells us what damages can be recovered, and it breaks it down into if you are surviving spouse versus a surviving child, versus a surviving parent, there are different sorts of damages for each of those that you can recover. Even someone that is further removed in the family chain can recover damages. That all depends on how the Wrongful Death Act lays out those damages. Generally speaking, the damages are loss of the familiar relationship with a parent or a child, that’s pain and suffering for the loss of that person.
There is also loss of net estate accumulations. That is when you’re loved one was earning money that would’ve benefited you in the long run and you can show that there was that benefit through a 401k or some other sort of savings or some other sort of account. Then there are damages for loss of that person’s duties that they were doing on your behalf, where you now have to pay someone else to do those duties.
The damages are complex, which is why you should really get an attorney involved early on. An attorney can identify all the potential damages, all the family members that can recover those damages, and then handle that case appropriately. Our law firm has been handling wrongful death cases for nearly 60 years, so we know how to maximize the value of all those different damages.
Have you lost a loved one due to the negligence of another person in Florida and have questions about how to win your wrongful death claim? Contact our experienced Southwest Florida wrongful death lawyers today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
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