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Were you injured in Lawrenceville, GA or its surroundings? Our lawyers can help you recover from your losses. We have decades of combined experience handling local personal injury cases.
Having a local personal injury lawyer with experience with and knowledge of the actual value of your case is vital to ensuring you receive the most compensation possible for your injuries.
Our award-winning personal injury lawyers know the best way to go up against insurance companies because we used to work with them and use that experience to help you win.
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Led by Theodore Spaulding, a Georgia-based attorney boasting a top-tier 10/10 Avvo rating, our team delivers dependable legal support, letting you prioritize personal recovery and paying tribute to your dearly departed. Our unwavering commitment to our clients, reflected in our 5.0/5.0-star rating, marks us as one of Sugar Hill’s top legal teams.
What Is a Wrongful Death?
A wrongful death can emerge from events like car crashes, slips and falls, or medical negligence. If such oversight led to your loved one’s passing, you are entitled to launch a wrongful death lawsuit. Our wrongful death team in Sugar Hill is prepared to evaluate your situation. Set up your complimentary case review by contacting us or using our website’s contact form.
FAQ
Georgia’s wrongful death laws can be nuanced, often prompting questions. To help, we’ve come up with answers to relevant questions.
Who Can File A Wrongful Death Claim In The State Of Georgia?
Primarily, the deceased’s surviving spouse, who also stands for any underage children, holds the right to initiate a wrongful death lawsuit in Georgia. Any compensation granted should be apportioned between the spouse and the offspring, with at least 33% allotted to the spouse.
Absent a spouse, the deceased’s children can file the lawsuit. If neither spouse nor children survive, the deceased’s parents can step in. When no direct family members remain, the deceased’s estate can lodge a wrongful death claim.
Survival Actions vs. Wrongful Death Claims – How Do They Differ?
These two redressal mechanisms cater to distinct aspects of death, with differences that you must understand in a Sugar Hill wrongful death scenario.
A wrongful death lawsuit zeroes in on the losses survivors incur due to the untimely death of a loved one. This might include potential earnings the departed would’ve contributed, loss of companionship, emotional strain, and burial costs.
Potential Earnings the Departed Would’ve Contributed
To determine the potential earnings the deceased would’ve contributed, forensic economists or financial experts may be called upon. They analyze the deceased’s employment history, educational background, age, skill sets, and the income trajectory they were on at the time of death.
Predictive models, considering inflation and promotion prospects, might be utilized to project potential future earnings. Pay stubs, tax returns, and employment contracts can serve as tangible evidence to establish a baseline for these calculations.
Loss of Companionship
Demonstrating the loss of companionship is more intangible and can be one of the more challenging aspects to quantify. Typically, testimonies from family members, friends, and even professionals such as therapists or counselors are used. They might speak about the close relationship they had with the deceased, shared activities, and the emotional void their absence has created. Photographs, letters, and other personal artifacts can also be presented to showcase the depth and nature of the bond.
Emotional Strain
The emotional turmoil and grief following the wrongful death of a loved one can be profound. To prove this, the survivors might provide personal testimonies expressing their anguish, depression, insomnia, or other psychological effects stemming from the loss. Professional testimonies from psychologists, therapists, or counselors who’ve interacted with the survivors can corroborate the emotional impact. Medical records or prescriptions related to any mental health treatments or medications sought post-incident can also be used as evidence.
Burial Costs
Proving burial costs is a more straightforward process. Receipts and invoices from funeral homes, cemeteries, and other service providers associated with the funeral and burial process are collected. This can include costs related to the casket, burial plot, embalming, funeral service, transportation, and other related expenses. These tangible documents directly illustrate the financial burden the family had to bear as a direct result of their loved one’s untimely death.
Survival Action
Conversely, a survival action pertains to damages the deceased could have claimed if alive like medical bills before passing or any conscious pain suffered.
Who Pays the Wrongful Death Settlement?
Typically, the insurance company of the negligent party shoulders the financial liability in wrongful death suits, be it auto insurance in deadly vehicle accidents or professional liability in lethal medical errors.
Yet, insurance often has coverage ceilings. If a settlement overshoots these, the liable individual might need to pay the extra.
What Role Do Wrongful Death Lawyers Play?
Given the intricate nature of wrongful death cases, legal representation is key. Our Sugar Hill wrongful death team has the knowledge, insights, and experience to handle these cases.
From building a strong case showcasing the defendant’s fault to hiring specialists, collecting vital evidence, and handling documentation, our attorneys adopt a holistic strategy. If your lawsuit proceeds to court, Spaulding Injury Law is ready to represent your interests, ensuring your narrative is both conveyed and understood.
Embarking on a Wrongful Death Lawsuit in Sugar Hill
To kickstart a wrongful death lawsuit in Sugar Hill, one must first demonstrate that negligence, carelessness, or willful intent from another led to your loved one’s death. Gathering evidence to validate this claim is crucial, with materials like police files, medical logs, witness testimonies, and expert assessments.
Once this base is established, you can submit a lawsuit in a Sugar Hill court. This includes drafting and presenting a demand outlining your lawsuit, naming the at-fault party, specifying case details, and stipulating the compensation sought.
The defendant then has an opportunity to contest your assertions. If they challenge the claim, the lawsuit may advance to discovery, where both sides further collect evidence, consult witnesses, and refine their arguments. If no settlement materializes at this point, the lawsuit heads to trial, where a Sugar Hill judge or jury will pronounce the verdict.
Possible Compensation in a Sugar Hill Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Compensatory damages in a Sugar Hill wrongful death lawsuit can be either economic or non-economic.
Economic Damages
Termed “special damages,” they cover quantifiable fiscal losses tied to the death.
- Medical bills: This encapsulates medical expenses linked to the event resulting in death, ranging from immediate emergency care to surgeries, treatments, or drugs before the person’s demise.
- Funeral and interment expenses: The costs tied to funeral rites, burial, or cremation can be sizable and are recoverable in a wrongful death claim in Sugar Hill.
- Lost potential earnings: This concerns the income the departed might have yielded had they lived their full life expectancy. Assessing this involves considering age, health, anticipated lifespan, occupation, abilities, and earning capacity at death.
- Loss of benefits: If the departed offered benefits like health coverage or retirement perks, these lost benefits might be claimable.
Non-Economic Damages
Labelled “general damages,” these cater to intangible losses.
- Emotional trauma: This encompasses the psychological torment and grief suffered by survivors due to the passing. It could span sorrow, stress, depression, insomnia, and other mental and emotional afflictions.
- Loss of company or consortium: This compensates for the loss of affection, care, and intimacy that the departed provided. For spouses, it can pertain to lost affection and intimacy. For parents, it represents the loss of guidance and nurturing they’d have given their children.
- Reduced quality of life: This captures the detrimental impacts on survivors’ life enjoyment, including their capacity to partake in activities or relish pleasures they enjoyed before the death.
- Deceased’s pain before death: If the departed didn’t pass away instantly and bore pain prior to their demise, recompense can be sought for this suffering.
Given the complexities of determining these compensatory amounts in a Sugar Hill wrongful death lawsuit, consulting a seasoned local lawyer is imperative. They can guide you in ensuring you claim all due compensation.
Act Quickly for Your Lawsuit
It’s important to move quickly when filing a wrongful death lawsuit in Sugar Hill. Georgia’s statute of limitations generally allows a two-year span from the date of death to initiate a wrongful death litigation.
Delaying beyond this might rob you of your legal right to compensation.
There can be exceptions, so consulting a Sugar Hill attorney sooner rather than later is wise. A proactive approach can be crucial to successfully protecting your rights after a loss.
Hire a Sugar Hill Wrongful Death Attorney
Contracting a Sugar Hill wrongful death attorney from Spaulding Injury Law costs nothing. We use a contingency model, meaning our fees come from your settlement or verdict. If no compensation is secured, you owe nothing in attorney’s fees.
If you or a family member has suffered due to a wrongful death incident in Sugar Hill, we strongly recommend contacting our wrongful death team. Trust Spaulding Injury Law to represent you, arming your lawsuit with knowledge, commitment, and seasoned legal strategy.
Fill out our online contact form to initiate a free case review. Let Spaulding Injury Law be your beacon in these dark hours, offering you the compassion you deserve.
Visit Our Car Accident Office in Sugar Hill, GA
We help victims inside the Gwinnett County Area and our firm is conveniently located near Sugar Hill. We have an office in Lawrenceville at 223 Scenic Hwy S #202 Lawrenceville, GA