Fairfax Survival Action Claims

Survival actions are similar to personal injury actions. Someone who wants to pursue a Fairfax survival action will need to file a suit following the relevant case laws and statutory guidance. It may be filed alongside a wrongful death case and then at the time of counsel and beneficiary’s mutual choosing, an election is made to proceed with a survival action or a wrongful death action. You cannot receive a verdict for both, though you would not have to elect on which you would want to proceed until the court requests it at the appropriate time.

Survival actions usually last the same amount of time as a wrongful death action. Whether there is a strong legal defense, whether the amount of coverage is appropriate for the losses suffered, and whether both sides have a similar evaluation of the case. There are a number of different factors which dictate how long a case may take to resolve.

Establishing Liability in Fairfax Survival Actions

A Fairfax survival action attorney working for you has to establish liability the same way as in a personal injury action or wrongful death action. In other words, proving that there was causation. Causation means that if not for the actions of the negligent or intentional party, or the premises liability, the person would not have suffered the damages they suffered and that would have not led to their untimely death.

After liability is established then the case proceeds to determining appropriate damages.

How a Fairfax Survival Action Lawyer Can Help

While there is nothing a Fairfax survival action attorney can do with respect to bringing a loved one back to life, an attorney can help make the Important factors are giving the attorney as much information as possible, including for relevant requests the attorney may have as they are preparing or questioning witnesses, etc. No, of course not.

Just as in any other type of case, the insurance companies and the defense counsel involved are going to try to minimize their client’s exposure. That is the role of the defense counsel. So having an experienced wrongful death or survival action attorney to handle the case will help make sure things are not overlooked and that the appropriate amount of damages are recovered.

The beneficiaries and their attorneys come together to decide whether a settlement out of court or a court verdict would be in the beneficiaries’ best interests. Likelihood of potential outcome, potential legal defenses, likelihood of a defense verdict, the emotional toll of taking a case to trial, the pressures associated with the trial, potential trial costs, expert witness testimony, and a number of other factors go into this very important decision.

Damages

The role of damages is to attempt to make the beneficiaries whole. While it is impossible to bring back a loved one, an attorney will try to make the loss more bearable by helping survivors achieve some type of financial security. A Fairfax survival action attorney will look at the damages suffered by the person in their last hours, days, or months, and attempt to compensate the beneficiaries for the loss that person suffered during that time period.

Conscious Pain and Suffering

Conscious pain and suffering is actually similar to the conscious pain and suffering presented in a typical personal injury action. However, because the person is no longer with us to tell us about their conscious pain and suffering, it typically must be done through the lay testimony of family members, expert witness testimony or potentially even recordings or writings of the deceased.

That is the only legal way to compensate them for their pain and suffering. The whole purpose of the survival action is not to compensate the survivor but to really compensate the deceased had they survived. Looking at the pain the deceased went through, it is not fair to simply make that conscious pain and suffering a novelty because of their death. It may be that what would have been recoverable by them is now recoverable by their beneficiary by the same means that what they owed is now recoverable by the beneficiaries.

Bills

Medical bills are always compensable damages whether in a personal injury action, survival action or wrongful death action. These include the medical charges themselves and not the write-offs or insurance deductions.

According to the Virginia Code, reasonable funeral expenses are recoverable in all wrongful death actions.

Funeral expenses which are compensable may include the cost of a foreign burial for a foreign citizen. The funeral charges must be apportioned among the creditors who rendered the service. The amount must be paid to the personal representative acting as the plaintiff in the action, who then has to use those funds to satisfy the creditors. Funeral expenses are always at issue in these actions, including if the case goes to a jury verdict, presenting information for the jury to award reasonable funeral expenses.

Cost of a Funeral

Domestic funerals routinely cost several thousand dollars, up to ten thousand dollars is not unreasonable. In foreign burial cases, it may be more. Particularly since it may be a foreign burial which may include airfare for the deceased and things of that nature. Therefore, funerals can be quite expensive.