When a family loses a loved one due to what appears to be a medical mistake, there’s all the normal grief of the loss compounded by urgent questions about whether the outcome could have been prevented. A wrongful death lawyer in Washington, DC can help a family find out what really happened, build a claim, and hold the responsible parties to account.
From a Washington, DC Wrongful Death Lawyer: Things for Families to Know
What a Wrongful Death Claim Is
In a medical setting, this is a claim that allows surviving family members to seek compensation for the losses they have suffered because a healthcare provider’s negligence caused the death of their loved one.
A Claim Needs to Fulfill Four Elements
To succeed, the claim must prove four core elements of negligence:
- The medical professional or facility must have owed a duty of care to the patient through an established treatment relationship
- That duty must have been breached as care fell below the accepted standard
- This breach must have been the proximate cause of the death (it’s more likely than not it was the breach that led directly to the fatal outcome)
- There are actual, demonstrable damages resulting from the loss
Moving Quickly Is Always Best
In these cases, everything depends on the medical records and witness recollections. Autopsy reports or death certificates can also provide important starting points for review, but the medical records themselves need to be preserved and witnesses need to be interviewed before anything can be changed, obscured, or forgotten.
You Can Recover Both Economic and Non-Economic Losses
What families can recover typically includes first their economic losses, such as the financial support the deceased would have continued to provide for the family, household services they typically performed, and any out-of-pocket medical and funeral expenses. The family may also ask for non-economic damages. These are for the loss of companionship, guidance, or relationship that the family must now deal with because their loved one is gone. The final amount depends on the deceased’s age at the time of death, their overall health, their earning history, and the family’s circumstances.
As an example, if the deceased was a healthy man of 35 with young children, his loss is an especially heavy burden to the children, who have now lost many years of companionship, guidance, and love they could otherwise have expected to enjoy. If the deceased was in poor health and an older man of 75, with grown children, while emotionally the loss is just as painful, the courts will assume the family needs less in compensation. The adult children in this situation would normally be less dependent financially on their father, have already received most of the companionship and guidance he could give them in a lifetime, and, due to his poor health, could not have expected to him to be with them much longer.
Talk to a Lawyer Today
If you’re dealing with the death of a loved one, no amount of money can make it right. Nevertheless, you may be owed compensation for what you’ve lost because of someone’s negligence. To find out more about your situation, contact LawMD Chartered in Washington, DC. Medical malpractice is our focus because our lawyers are also doctors. From our offices in Washington and Atlanta, we serve clients nationwide.
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