Proving Negligence in a Montgomery County Wrongful Death Case

Losing a spouse or family member to someone else’s negligence is a truly awful and life-altering experience. Although you can never fully recover what is lost when a loved one passes away, Pennsylvania law tries to provide some form of justice for family members by permitting wrongful death lawsuits against the entities or individuals who caused you harm. 

Understanding Wrongful Death

Explained by a Montgomery County Wrongful Death Lawyer 

Pennsylvania has a wrongful death statute, the Pennsylvania Wrongful Death Act, that governs wrongful death claims. It permits certain family members to seek compensation against those who wrongfully, negligently, or intentionally cause another person’s death.

Wrongful death actions are different from any ongoing criminal action that the criminal justice system may pursue against a responsible party. While a criminal action may result in jail time or probation, wrongful death is a civil action and focuses on the recovery of money for losses incurred by the family members of the deceased. Wrongful death allows for the recovery of damages like medical bills, lost wages that supported the family, pain and suffering, and lost companionship. And wrongful death lawsuits can be brought in many situations where criminal laws may not apply, such as deaths caused by dangerous property conditions, workplace injuries, or medical malpractice.

In addition to wrongful death actions brought by family members for losses they have experienced, Pennsylvania law also permits survival actions by a deceased’s estate to recover the damages that the deceased might have recovered had they not passed away. This can include the pain and suffering of the deceased and any earnings that they lost. Often, the damages claims of wrongful death and survival actions overlap, and the primary difference between the two is the nature of the plaintiff bringing the claim.

Negligence In Wrongful Death Cases

Negligence is a particular standard of liability under Pennsylvania law. It arises when an individual does not act with a reasonable level of care. Negligence can occur when an individual deliberately fails to take care of their property or products. But it can also arise when someone is not paying attention and fails to act in a reasonable and careful manner. 

It is not enough to show that a defendant is careless when bringing a wrongful death action based on negligence. Rather, a wrongful death action requires showing that a failure of care led to the death of a family member that could otherwise have been prevented. There are four key elements that you need to show to establish negligence: 

• (1) a duty to care; 
• (2) a failure to act as required by the duty (known as a “breach of duty”); 
• (3) a connection between the failure to care and the death (known as “causation”); and 
•  (4) damages. 

Duty To Care

Negligence cases can only be brought against those who had a responsibility to act with a certain level of care to avoid harming others. While this duty arises in many different contexts, it does not apply to every situation. For example, say a grocery store has a dangerous spill that could result in someone falling. A random customer in the grocery store at the time might notice that the spill has happened, but they have no duty to care for the spill in order to prevent someone from being hurt. But the grocery store itself does have a responsibility to keep its premises in a safe and reasonable condition. If that same customer alerts the grocery store of the spill and the grocery store fails to do anything about it, the grocery store may be responsible for later injuries that occur. In this situation, the grocery store had a duty to care to address known hazards on its property.

A duty to care can arise in many different situations. Property owners have a duty to keep their property in reasonably safe condition. Road owners have a duty to care for the conditions of their roads. Drivers have a duty to drive responsibly. It is impossible to list all of the situations that create a duty to care here, but an experienced Montgomery County wrongful death attorney can help you evaluate whether a duty of care applied in the situation that led to your loved one’s death.

Breach and Causation

Assuming a duty of care exists, a claim for negligence in a wrongful death case requires showing that a failure to meet that duty caused the wrongful death at issue. It is not enough to suggest that the failure to act might have caused a fatality. A family seeking to bring a wrongful death case must show that the failure to act was the cause of their loved one’s death and the death would not have happened if the responsible party had acted according to their duty. For example, if a driver texting, swerved on the road and killed another driver, it is clear that the driver breached their duty to drive responsibly, but for the texting driver’s failure to pay attention to the road, the death would not have occurred.

Damages

Finally, a wrongful death action requires showing actual damages. This means that family members bringing a wrongful death claim must show that the death resulted in specific losses. Such damages are typically not hard to establish, as the death of a family member often results in medical costs, funeral expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. 

Proving a Defendant’s Negligence

To meet all of the above elements of a negligence claim, family members must gather evidence to establish their loved one’s death, how that death occurred, and how a defendant was responsible for the death. The exact evidence needed for any particular wrongful death action will vary based on the facts of the case, but common forms of evidence include:

• Official Reports of the Accident: This can include police reports, investigation reports, medical records, and autopsy reports showing the cause of death. 
• Witness Statements: Witnesses may be able to establish what was happening at the time of a loved one’s death, or that a defendant knew about a dangerous condition but failed to address it. Witnesses may also be able to help with establishing a pattern of negligent behavior that supports a negligence claim. 
• Expert Witness Testimony: Expert witnesses are professionals who are hired to testify on certain technical topics. They can be particularly helpful in establishing causation in negligence cases. For example, a medical expert might testify as to how a doctor failed to provide a reasonable standard of care to a patient. 
• Other Documentary Evidence: This can include photos or videos of the accident site, text messages and emails about the accident, and physical evidence of negligence such as defective products. 

In order to bring a successful wrongful death action, family members must think carefully about the evidence that is needed for their case and take steps to preserve important evidence before trial. An experienced Montgomery County wrongful death lawyer can not only help strategize about key pieces of evidence that must be developed for a successful claim, but also help with the process of identifying and gathering physical evidence and witness statements. 

Understanding Comparative Negligence in Wrongful Death Claims

Pennsylvania is a modified comparative negligence state. This means that the law recognizes that there may be multiple parties involved in a death and that these parties should be assigned a percentage of responsibility for the damages that occur. This can include the decedent being partly at fault for their own death themselves.  

Even if a loved one bears some fault for their own injury and death, their family members can still recover for the losses they incurred as long as the decedent’s share of responsibility was 50 percent or less. Thus, if a decedent is 10 percent at fault for the death because, for example, they failed to look before crossing a street, a family’s total recovery would be limited to 90 percent of their overall damages. 

Comparative negligence means that, in considering how to prove a wrongful death claim, family members must also be prepared to show that their loved one was not responsible for any part of the death that occurred and should not be assigned responsibility. It is likely that a defendant may attempt to reduce their own liability by arguing that the decedent is at fault, and evidence gathered to support a wrongful death claim should also focus on countering these arguments. 

Getting Justice for Your Family Member’s Death

If you have recently lost a loved one due to another’s negligence, it is important that you speak with an attorney as soon as possible to evaluate whether you may have a wrongful death claim and discuss a strategy for gathering the evidence necessary to prove that claim. The Montgomery County wrongful death lawyer team at Anthony C. Gagliano III, Esquire, P.C. is committed to representing family members in wrongful death lawsuits and will fight to get you the justice that you deserve. For more information or to schedule a consultation, contact us today.