Articles Tagged with Wrongful Death

If you have recently lost a loved one as a result of a third party’s actions, you may be considering your legal options. Before you go through the troubles of filing a lawsuit, it’s important to determine whether you have a case and whether you have the opportunity of winning compensation for the damages you have suffered. In the long run, evaluating your situation before moving forward with a suit will save you time, money, and further grievances. So before filing, ask yourself the following questions:

Did the death of a human being occur as a result of a “wrongful act” by another person?

A “wrongful act” by another person can mean any of the following:

Although the number of workplace injuries has fallen since 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the risk of injury or illness remains high for employees in air transportation, public sector construction, nursing homes, and some other jobs.

If you were injured while on the job, you may be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. Depending on the severity of your injury, your employer could be held liable for lost wages, medical expenses, rehabilitation costs, and benefits to your dependents.

Take these steps after a workplace injury to ensure your claim is properly established:

Property owners have a duty to provide a reasonably safe environment for other who may enter their establishment. In the legal world, we call this premises liability.

When someone is injured on another person’s property and sues, courts first seek to determine whether the injured was allowed on the premises. If the owner consents to a person’s entry on the property, the person is deemed an invitee or licensee. When consent is not given, the person is considered a trespasser.

A property owner may be liable for injuries of an invitee or licensee if: 

More than 1.5 million people are injured each year in the U.S. due to medication errors, and about 7,000 are killed. When doctors or pharmacists makes a mistake with prescription medications, the consequences can be fatal.

Claims for prescription errors are often based on simple negligence, but can be attributed to professional malpractice. The following are the most common mistakes made by both doctors and pharmacies:

  • Failure to notify patient of possible side effects.

The family of two young girls, aged 15 months and four-years-old, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Bugman Pest and Lawn, Inc. of Utah.

According to investigators, the girls died just a few days after a fumigant was placed around their house and the sisters might have inhaled phosphine fumes emitted from tablets of a rat poison called Fumitoxin.

Has your loved one experienced a death caused by the wrongful actions of another person or company?

A Pennsylvania woman died days after she was struck by a power line that fell into her yard. Carrie Goretzka stepped outside to call 911 about the line and was shocked and burned by a live electrical wire that fell from trees. Rescue workers were unable to administer treatment until a utility crew came to cut off the power.

Goretzka’s family filed a lawsuit against the utility company, West Penn Power, and its related companies. It contends the companies are liable for Goretzka’s death because utility workers failed to properly maintain the wires that fell near her home.

The family’s attorney, Shanin Specter, says the power line failed at a point where it was spliced. He says workers using a splice device know to use a wire brush to clean oxides from the wires, otherwise overheating will cause the splice to fail.

The mother of a 32-year-old woman killed in a Chicago high-rise apartment blaze earlier this month has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. The suit alleges building management’s lack of a sprinkler system is directly to blame for her daughter’s death.

JoAnn McCoy, whose daughter Shantel perished in the January 8th fire, also claims building management “failed … to warn [the victim] of a fire” and “allowed [the victim] to use the elevators when [building management] knew or should have known it was not safe to do so.”

The fire injured nine others, including two firefighters.

The case involving the 2004 explosion of a water heater in Indiana has been settled for $27 million.

The explosion leveled an apartment that was attached to a Morgan County barn, killing one man and critically burning six of his family members.

A year after the incident, the family filed a products liability suit against the water heater company. The jury decided South Central Indiana Rural Electric Membership Corp., RushShelby Energy Rural Electric Cooperative and SCI Propane LLC were 65 percent liable for the accident.

The California Courts have awarded a grandmother $3 million in a wrongful death suit stemming from a 2010 car accident.

The traumatic accident occurred when an 81-year-old woman driving a Hyundai made an unsafe turn at an estimated 50 mph and collided into the center median, turning head-on into a Mazda holding two grandparents and their three grandchildren.

The grandmother’s husband of 48 years was killed in the accident and her three grandchildren were severely injured.

In 2008, a five-year-old girl drowned in a pool at her after-school program, Little Bridges. The little girl was autistic and blind, and although Little Bridges was fully aware of this, they failed to provide the proper supervision for her.

The father of the California five-year-old filed a wrongful death suit against everyone connected to his little girl’s death, including the local school district. In March he was awarded $400k.

If you or someone you know has experienced suffering from the loss of a loved one please contact McAleer Law today.