Georgia Truck Accident Attorney

A wrongful death lawsuit cannot be filed for every type of death that occurs. The death must occur when the victim would not have died if the defendant had not acted maliciously or negligently. Essentially, a wrongful death lawsuit is valid if a victim was healthy before the accident, but perished due to the accident, which was the fault of the defendant.To further explain the concept, let’s examine some examples.

A famous wrongful death lawsuit was brought against O.J. Simpson after he was acquitted in criminal court. The civil court case for the wrongful deaths of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were brought forward by their parents. The plaintiffs argued that the malicious acts of Simpson (namely, committing a murder) caused these individuals to die when they otherwise wouldn’t have. His actions were malicious and had the intent to cause the deaths. This isn’t always the case in wrongful death suits.

Cases of medical malpractice can qualify for wrongful death. Doctors have a duty to give their patients proper care. If they do not, due to carelessness or misdiagnosis of an illness any other reasonable doctor would have diagnosed, and it results in a patient’s death, they can be sued for wrongful death. They can also be sued if they over or misprescribed medications that lead to an overdose or poisoning of a victim.Car accidents caused by a driver’s negligence result in wrongful death suits when a victim dies as a result of the collision. While many car accidents result in injuries, most are not fatal. For a car accident to cause death, the crash must have been severe. This could be the result of an impaired driver, a truck accident, or even a pedestrian hit by a turning car.

An easy way to determine if a case qualifies for wrongful death is to ask “would this have been a personal injury claim if the victim had lived?” If the answer is yes, then it’s a wrongful death claim.