Stockton Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Bringing a lawsuit can seem beyond the realms of possibility for those having lost a loved one as a result of some accident or avoidable cause of death. But for those getting over the death of a family member, a wrongful death claim can be a vital element to the healing process, allowing financial and moral justice to be served to the family alongside any criminal actions that may be brought.

A lawsuit isn’t an alternative to the criminal sanctions that may be imposed as a consequence of a party’s death, but an addition, concerning the family of the deceased on private law grounds. While there may be no strict private law relationship pre-existing between the deceased and the accused party, the operation of tort law in common law jurisdictions gives rise to an implied relationship which is breached by the causation of harm.

A Stockton wrongful death lawsuit requires the following elements to be established in order to succeed:

• Actus – there must be an identifiable act or behavior perpetrated by the defending party, which must satisfy the relevant criteria under statue or common law, e.g. negligence.

• Causality – the actus must have actually caused the death – that is, no new intervening factors can have occurred between the accused party’s actions and the death of the deceased, and both must be directly causally linked in order to satisfy the requirements of a wrongful death lawsuit.

• Proximity of Cause – where there is more than one identifiable cause or potential cause of death, was the actus sufficiently proximate to the consequence to give rise to liability?

• Duty of Care – could the accused party be said to have owed a duty of care to the deceased, and have the actions in question breached any duty that may have existed? A Stockton wrongful death lawsuit that doesn’t concern a strict liability actus will require a duty of care to be established.

• Burden of Proof – have the pursuing party satisfied the legal requirements of proof necessary to win a lawsuit (i.e. ‘preponderance of the evidence’ in the US)?

For more information, visit www.injuryexperts.com or contact the Law Offices of Macey & Searns, specialists in personal injury and wrongful and accidental death claims.

Corporate Wrongful Death

Unlike liability for financial loss or damage to property, liability for personal injury and death cannot be written out of a contract or purported to be minimized in any way – parties will always be held legally accountable for their actions in respect of a Stockton wrongful death lawsuit and personal injury claims. Thus, companies as well as individuals can be brought to civil justice. The conceptual and legal difficulties that arise from the context of corporate crime, such as defining when a corporate body can be said to ‘act’ and whether the corporation can be said to have caused a particular outcome make corporate wrongful death claims more complex, requiring the input of a specialized wrongful death attorney from the start in order to achieve success. Nevertheless it is still more than possible to hold a company to account for the death of a family member in a Stockton wrongful death lawsuit, and the Law Offices of Macey & Searns can be of assistance in bringing such a case.