Out of 547 Reviews
The death of a loved one is often difficult for the surviving family members. If you lost a close relative, you could have lost a companion, financial provider, or caretaker. Your children could have lost years of wisdom and guidance. When the death results from another person, company, or entity’s carelessness or negligence, you might be able to seek monetary compensation through a wrongful death lawsuit.
Our skilled South Bend, IN wrongful death attorneys will guide you through every step of the process. We know that this is a difficult moment, and our office handles every case with the compassion, care, and professionalism it deserves.
An unexpected death could leave a family in economic despair. Our office has helped South Bend families seek compensation for lost income, funeral and burial expenses, loss of companionship, and other losses that impact your family’s financial future. Contact Wruck Paupore PC Injury Lawyers at (765) 295-6920 for a full case evaluation, free of charge.
Under Indiana law, wrongful death is defined as a death due to negligent conduct, such as a car wreck, medical malpractice, or an intentional act, such as a crime. You must file a wrongful death lawsuit within two years of the date of the death. This deadline remains the same whether the deceased was an adult or a child. However, in some instances, you are required to take legal action within 180-days, so it is very important that you do not delay protecting your rights.
A wrongful death lawsuit may arise from various types of accidents and incidents.
Unfortunately, many car accidents in South Bend result in fatal injuries. These include crashes involving passenger vehicles, trucks, buses, and motorcycles. In some cases, a pedestrian or a bicyclist is killed by a motorist.
Surgical errors, misdiagnoses, birth injuries, and other mistakes could cost a patient their life. Our South Bend personal injury lawyers are committed to holding medical professionals liable for their unjustifiable errors.
Many families turn to worker’s compensation claims when they lose a loved one in a work-related accident. However, there are times when a negligent third party could be held accountable.
These types of accidents are common and are often serious. A fall from a significant height could be fatal. Property owners should be held accountable if their properties present deadly hazards.
When a product has a design flaw, manufacturing defect, or an insufficient warning label, it could cause an injury. Depending on the product and the nature of the defect, these injuries could be fatal.
If your loved one’s death is attributable to another’s negligence, you might be wondering about your rights and options. Under Indiana law, the personal representative of the deceased’s estate is entitled to file a wrongful death claim if the death was of an adult. The relationship between the personal representative and the deceased does not matter.
However, what is recoverable in a wrongful death action will depend upon the status of the adult at their death. Suppose the adult was married or had dependent children. In that case, recovery may be made for the loss of the spouse or dependent children’s loss of love, affection, and companionship, and there is no cap on the amount of recovery in this instance. In other situations, caps on damages may exist, which our attorneys will explain to you based on your particular situation.
If you prevail in a wrongful death claim in South Bend, the court will have discretion on how the proceeds are disbursed among surviving family members. In cases where the deceased was the child of divorced parents, only the parent with legal custody is entitled to file a wrongful death claim.
Naming your defendant is an important step in any lawsuit. For some, the defendant’s identity is clear from the very beginning. For others, the defendant’s identity might be a mystery. We also risk letting our emotions cloud our judgment in wrongful death lawsuits. While we might believe one particular person is to blame for the tragic loss, it might actually be someone else, or they might share liability.
Deciding whom to sue often requires a skilled investigation into how your loved one passed away. Was it an accident? If so, who caused or contributed to the accident? Could the accident have been caused by an unseen person or force? For instance, if it was a motor vehicle accident, were the roads properly maintained and did the government maintain proper traffic signals and speed limits in the area?
Often, a person who owed a duty of care to your loved one may be liable for their wrongful death if they violated their duty, and the death is directly connected to this violation. Exactly what this looks like varies from case to case but should be investigated by an experienced law firm.
If more than one person is responsible for your loved one’s wrongful death, our South Bend, IN wrongful death lawyers can help you seek recovery from multiple defendants. In some cases, other parties can be held vicariously liable for the negligence of others. For example, employers may be held liable for their employee’s negligence. If your loved one died after a car accident with a bus driver, you can often sue the bus driver and the bus company that employs them.
Every case needs evidence. Evidence in a wrongful death lawsuit can be hard to predict, as each case is unique and may turn on vastly different forms of evidence. If your loved one passed away after an accident, you will need evidence from that accident. For example, photos and videos from the accident scene can show a jury how and where the accident occurred.
If your loved one’s wrongful death resulted from an intentional act, you might need evidence that directly ties the defendant to the cause of death. For example, a weapon with the defendant’s fingerprints or DNA on the defendant’s clothes that matches your loved one’s DNA may be important to your case.
Even if physical evidence is hard to find or non-existent, you can still rely on witness testimony. The more people that witnessed the accident or incident, the better. Multiple stories that align and paint a complete picture of your loved one’s wrongful death can help you establish the defendant’s liability.
Your loved one’s medical records are of the utmost importance. These records can help our South Bend, IN wrongful death lawyers establish the cause of death. We can call in expert medical witnesses to explain the information in your loved one’s medical records and how your loved one died. It will be important to review whether an autopsy was performed, obtain an official death certificate, and determine whether any additional expert testimony is required regarding cause of death. Expert witnesses are unique because they are allowed to offer opinions based on their expertise where ordinary lay witnesses can only testify to factual matters they have observed.
Indiana has many specific laws that govern compensation awarded in a wrongful death claim. For example, a surviving adult family member is not permitted to recover for emotional suffering or grief. Our South Bend, IN wrongful death attorneys will seek compensation for the following:
In addition to restricting what a surviving member could be compensated for, Indiana law also sets certain cap limits on the damages available in a wrongful death claim in certain situations.
The Adult Wrongful Death Act caps possible damages for loss of companionship of most unmarried adults, without dependent children, at $300,000 in most instances.
Under Indiana’s Child Wrongful Death Act, there is no specific cap on damages for loss of love, affection, and companionship if the deceased is a child under 20-years-old. In some cases, the age limit is 23 if the person is enrolled in an education program.
In Indiana, a survival action could be filed in addition to a wrongful death claim. Our South Bend, IN wrongful death attorneys may bring one of these claims concurrently with the wrongful death lawsuit or as an alternative, depending on the specific circumstances.
A survival action is brought on behalf of the deceased’s estate to recover the damages the deceased suffered before their death. Think of it as a personal injury lawsuit that could have been filed if the deceased had not been killed. In a survival action, the estate of your loved one could be compensated for the following:
Wrongful death cases that involve children are not only traumatic, but they follow somewhat different rules regarding who can sue and what kind of damages can be recovered. Our South Bend, IN can help you through this incredibly difficult time and get you the compensation your family needs and deserves.
According to Indiana Code § 34-23-2-1, a “child” is anybody under 20 years old. Alternatively, a child may include anyone who is up to 23 years old and is enrolled in a postsecondary school, like college, university, or a technical education program.
The loss of a child is different than the loss of an adult, and the damages you can recover in a wrongful death lawsuit involving an adult are sometimes more limited. In a child wrongful death case, the parents may recover economic losses and may also recover damages for the loss of love and companionship of the child for the course of the parents lifetime, which is usually the largest component of damages. There is no cap on the monetary amount of recovery for this loss, which any grieving parent can tell you is tremendous. Parents are also able to recover their attorneys fees incurred in obtaining recovery under the Child Wrongful Death statute.
Things like lost income are usually not an issue in these cases because these are not things children typically provide to their parents, although this is often an issue in adult wrongful death cases. Some damages common in cases involving both adults and children. Funeral and burial expenses may be recovered in addition to hospital expenses connected with the child’s death.
Because the loss of a child is so traumatic, parents can claim damages related to the cost of psychiatric care. If you have to seek professional help from a psychiatrist, you may be able to recover the cost of your care.
Because wrongful death cases can be emotionally taxing, plaintiffs often seek out-of-court settlement agreements. A settlement is an agreement between defendants and plaintiffs. The defendant agrees to pay a certain sum of money to cover the plaintiff’s damages, and the plaintiff agrees to drop the case and waive their right to bring it to court.
A settlement may be appropriate if the defendant is willing to offer a full settlement that accounts for all of your legally recoverable damages. Doing so would allow you to get the compensation your family needs while avoiding the delay of a trial. However, if a fair settlement cannot be obtained, we are ready to take the defendants to court so a jury will hold them accountable for your actions. We work to try and limit the impact such a trial would have on your life, understanding the emotional trauma you have already been subjected to.
Settlements do not happen automatically, and they must be skillfully negotiated after your case is investigated and prepared. Our South Bend, IN wrongful death lawyers can help negotiate the best settlement possible for your situation. With strong evidence and our qualified team behind you, we will do everything in our power to ensure that your recover the maximum amount possible and allow you to move forward as best as possible.
Wrongful death cases are sometimes entangled with criminal trials. When someone suffers a wrongful death, the person responsible may be criminally charged, even if the death was not intentional. Criminal charges related to death are often very severe, and trials may take some time to complete. There is no reason to wait in pursuing your civil wrongful death case, however, as the civil case typically takes longer than the criminal case to make its way to trial.
Our South Bend, IN wrongful death lawyers can help you use this time to prepare your lawsuit, gather evidence, and find witnesses and obtain their testimony. When the criminal case is over, we will be prepared for a full trial. Of course, we can also negotiate a settlement while the criminal case is ongoing, and often these civil cases are resolved by settlement while the criminal case is still pending.
Where prosecutors are involved in bringing criminal charges against the defendant, it is important to have a good relationship with them to coordinate their case against the defendant with your own. We have strong relationships with the St. Joseph County and Elkhart County prosecutors’ offices and work with them cooperatively as they bring the criminal case.
If the defendant is found guilty or pleads guilty, you can use it to establish liability or negotiate a better settlement. Defendants guilty in their criminal trials usually know that they are more likely to be found liable at a civil trial. This may make them more willing to settle your civil lawsuit.
A wrongful death claim or survival action will not bring your loved one back. However, it might provide a sense of justice and provide the financial compensation you and your family need. Our South Bend, IN wrongful death attorneys provide compassionate and professional legal representation. Call (219( 322-1166 for a free evaluation of your case.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
Contact Us:
Wruck Paupore P.C.
Injury Lawyers
275 Joliet St. Suite #250
Dyer, IN 46311
© 2024
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Resources | Blog | Sitemap
© 2022 Wruck Paupore PC
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy
