3 Things You Need To Do After A Wrongful Death Occurs
Posted on: 9 October 2017
When you lose a loved one, you have to live with that pain for the rest of your life. While you will never be able to escape that pain or bring your loved one back, there is something that you can do that may help to justify their death: file a wrongful death suit against the responsible party. In doing so, you can potentially seek closure and recover from the financial burden that accompanied your loved one's wrongful death caused by an auto accident, medical malpractice, etc. To ensure your claim is as successful as it can be, here are three things you need to do:
1. Find the Appropriate Person to File the Claim
In order to legally file a wrongful death lawsuit, you are going to need to be the personal representative of your deceased loved one's estate. If they did not have a will, trust or any type of estate plan where they appointed a personal representative, then it will need to be an immediate surviving family member. This is going to be a spouse, child or parent.
2. Gather Necessary Records
Once it has been determined who will be filing the lawsuit, the next step is for this individual to begin collecting all the necessary vital documents and records for the claim. These records are important for identifying liability as well as evaluating the overall claim.
Some examples of documents that you will need include the death certificate, incident reports, and coroner report. The death certificate provides proof that your loved one did in fact die, and it will provide information regarding the date and time of death, in addition to the cause of death details. If the cause of death is not on the death certificate, you may need to obtain the report from the coroner. Alternatively, you may want to obtain this report for more extensive details surrounding the cause of death, such as to discover possible discrepancies.
Depending on how your loved one died, there are several different types of incident reports that you will need to collect. This is true whether it was a car accident, surgical error, or slip and fall accident. Your loved one's death will be formally investigated by police and an incident report will be written. You will need to request a copy of this report.
3. Stay on Top of the Statute of Limitations
Each state has its own statute of limitations, which is a timeframe of which you have to file a lawsuit after your loved one dies. If you miss the deadline, you will be unable to file your claim and recover the damages that you are potentially owed.
To avoid missing your opportunity to file a wrongful death claim, contact a wrongful death attorney in your local area as soon as possible. Check out a website like http://strohllaw.com for more information and assistance.
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