Limitations For Wrongful Death Lawsuits

Wrongful death statute of limitations, wrongful death lawsuits

Statute of limitations for filing a case

As per the law of the state, wrongful death lawsuits can only be filed by someone who is related to the victim in some way or the other. A lawsuit with wrongful death charges comes in to consideration only when the death of a person is caused by the willful negligence or by another person. The limitations have been put in place to avoid entertaining cases that could have been filed to malign a person’s name and the evidence of which may have been fabricated.

Wrongful death statute of limitations

  • In most cases the statute of limitations specifies a period of 2 years, starting from the date of death of the victim (as per police records). However, this doesn’t include cases of professional negligence from the part of medical practitioners. There are also special laws in case of determining the final statute of limitations for wrongful death cases. This makes the assistance of a legal practitioner extremely essential.
  • Another factor that affects the wrongful death statute of limitations is the discovery rule that may apply to such cases. There are cases wherein the limitations come in to effect immediately after the event that lead to the death of victim occurs. There are also cases where the limitations starts from the time where the plaintiff or the applicant discovers a link between the victim’s death and the accused as well as the action that lead to the death of the victim.
  • If the plaintiff happens to discover a link between the victim’s death and the defendant’s action with reasonable credibility only after a period of time, the statute of limitation would run from the time from which the plaintiff should have actually found out the said evidence.
  • The rules in some states is such that the statute of limitation would actually begin from the time of victim’s death, unless it prevents the applicant from bringing up the claim even before the evidence could have been discovered.

    Wrongful death statute of limitations, wrongful death lawsuits

    credible evidence of wrongful death

  • There might also be cases, where the statute of limitation may begin right from the time when the victim might have discovered about the injury or illness which the accused may have caused which eventually resulted in his death.

From all these cases, one can clearly understand the need for a legal expert in filing lawsuits with charges of wrongful deaths. Such lawsuits require long and complex legal battles which can only be fought in the court with the assistance of an experienced attorney.