Law Commons^™

A Better Interpretation Of The Wrongful Death Act, Dennis M. Doiron

Maine Law Review

A viable fetus is not a person under the wrongful death act, declared the Maine Law Court in a controversial decision in 1988. To reach this conclusion, the court employed one traditional and one new rule of statutory interpretation, and one traditional rule of law. The traditional rule of interpretation-that the wrongful death act is to be strictly construed because it is in derogation of the common law-dates from the earliest wrongful death cases heard by the court. The new rule of interpretation-that the death statute must be harmonized with the Maine Uniform Probate Code-derives from the enactment of the …

Medical Malpractice And Wrongful Death: Some Lives Are Worth More Than Others, Ralph Peeples, Catherine T. Harris

Ralph Peeples

We examined the outcomes and case characteristics of all the wrongful death lawsuits defended by a medical malpractice insurer in Virginia and North Carolina from 2009 through 2014. We derived our data from the insurer's closed claims files. Our goal was to identify the factors that affected whether compensation was paid, as well as the factors that affected the amount of compensation, when that occurred. Using multivariate analysis, we found that four variables had predictive power: the claims adjuster's assessment of liability, the age of the deceased, the marital status of the deceased, and whether the primary physician-defendant was engaged …

Issues Complicating Rights Of Spouses, Parents, And Children To Sue For Wrongful Death, Dale Katzenmeyer

Akron Law Review

There are two types of wrongful death statutes, the personal representative type, and the beneficiary type. With the personal representative type, the action is brought by the personal representative of the deceased on behalf of all persons statutorily eligible to benefit from the action. In the beneficiary type of statute, the statutorily authorized beneficiaries are joined together and bring the action in their own names.

Irrespective of the type of statute, the statutes seem to name clearly the persons who are acceptable beneficiaries. These beneficiaries, at a minimum, include spouses, parents and children. The difficult issues arise when the plaintiff …

Person V. Potential: Judicial Struggles To Decide Claims Arising From The Death Of An Embryo Or Fetus And Michigan's Struggle To Settle The Question, Dena M. Marks

Akron Law Review

“Death is well understood; it’s life that isn’t.” We recognize death, but state by state, courts struggle to understand life when called on to determine whether their states’ wrongful death acts apply after the death of an embryo or fetus. These struggles arise because, for the most part, state legislatures have failed to clarify whether a cause of action may be maintained under their wrongful death acts for the death of an embryo or fetus. This failure has lead to inconsistent and unfair results, often allowing the tortfeasor to benefit from causing the greater harm of death, when the tortfeasor …

Concubinage And Union Libre: A Historical Comparison Of The Rights Of Unwed Cohabitants In Wrongful Death Actions In France And Louisiana, Robert F. Taylor

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

In Mourning Of Bereavement Damages, Iain Field

Iain Field

In most Australian jurisdictions, bereavement is not compensable in an action for wrongful death. Unless such loss can be shown to amount to a recognised psychiatric injury, it is also precluded from recovery in the law of negligence. But why must a plaintiff demonstrate some reaction to the death of a loved one that transcends mere grief before the civil law will compensate his or her loss? Are Australian jurisdictions unusual in precluding such awards, and can this exclusion be rationalised with the compensation of non-pecuniary loss (including bereavement) in other areas of the law?

No Adequate Recompense For Destruction: The Constitutionality Of The New York Medical Malpractice Statute Of Limitations As Applied To Misdiagnosis Of Latent Disease, Lillian M. Spiess

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Wrongful Death And Survival Actions For Torts In Violation Of International Law, Alastair J. Agcaoili

San Diego Law Review

This Article aims to make sense of this neglected area of ATS law. I contend that the salient issue in these deceased-victim cases is not whether the nonvictim plaintiffs have standing to sue but rather whether they have a viable cause of action in the first place. Standing and cause of action concepts have an uneasy relationship in law. Although the distinction between constitutional standing and cause of action inquiries is well established, the division is less clear where, as here, standing doctrine is used to define a plaintiff’s eligibility to bring suit. Indeed, reliance on standing terminology in this …

Steed V. Imperial Airlines, Clay Plotkin

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

California's Response For Wrongful Death Of A Stillborn Fetus: Justus V. Atchison, Phyllis A. Dow

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Aviation Litigation: Federal Preemption And The Creation Of A Federal Remedy As A Means To Extinguish The Current Confusion In The Courts, Deborah J. Olsen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lost Life And Life Projects, Sean Hannon Williams

Indiana Law Journal

This Article provides the first analysis of wrongful death damages from the perspective of individual justice accounts of tort law. There is a widespread belief that wrongful death damages are incoherent. Currently, tort law responds only to the harms of the decedent’s living relatives. Drawing on deterrence rationales, Cass Sunstein, Eric Posner, and others have recommended altering these damage awards so that they respond to the harms of the decedent herself by providing “lost life” damages. This Article offers a different and powerful new foundation for lost life damages rooted in corrective justice and its main competitor, civil recourse. At …

Can Wrongful Death Damages Recovered By A Married Person Be Separate Property Under California Law?, William A. Reppy Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Existing California judicial precedent uniformly holds that damages recovered by a married person based on the wrongful death of a relative of the married person during the marriage—and while the spouses were not living separate and apart—is entirely community property. Under the theoretical basis for this community property classification, it is irrelevant that the person tortiously killed was a child or grandchild only of the plaintiff- or payee-spouse and had no legally recognized relationship to that party’s husband or wife, who becomes owner of half the recovery because of its classification as community property. This Article rejects this community property …

The "Enlightened Barbarity" Of Inclusive Fitness And Wrongful Death: Biological Justifications For An Investment Theory Of Loss In Wycko V. Gnodtke, Ryan Shannon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Wrongful death laws should permit and encourage courts and juries to consider the survivors' investment in decedents when determining wrongful death damages, given new biological justifications for this theory of loss. The investment theory of damages, which permits an award of damages based on the investment of financial resources relatives make in one another, originated in Michigan's courts in the early 1 960s, but as of present day has been largely abrogated. In the context of modern understandings of evolutionary biology, including kin selection theory and sociobiology, the investment theory of recovery accords with the goals of corrective justice as …

Loss Of Parental Consortium: Why Kentucky Should Re-Recognize The Claim Outside The Wrongful Death Context, Collin D. Schueler

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The term "consortium" has been defined as "[t]he benefits that one person . . . is entitled to receive from another, including companionship, cooperation, affection, aid, [and] financial support." Under Kentucky law, "[e]ither a wife or husband may recover damages against a third person for loss of consortium, resulting from a negligent or wrongful act of such third person.” Furthermore, "[in] a wrongful death action in which the decedent was a minor child, the surviving parent, or parents, may recover for loss of affection and companionship that would have been derived from such child during its minority…” In Giuliani v. …

Medical Malpractice Law, Kathleen M. Mccauley, William F. Demarest Iii

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taser Stun-Gun Verdict Supports Litigation As Means For Solving Social Issues, Dylan O. Malagrino

Dylan Malagrinò

Loss Of Potential Parenthood As A Statutory Solution To The Conflict Between Wrongful Death Remedies And Roe V. Wade, Erica Richards

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Denial Of Recovery To Nonresident Beneficiaries Under Washington's Wrongful Death And Survival Statutes: Is It Really Cheaper To Kill A Man Than To Maim Him?, Jonathan James

Seattle University Law Review

Although courts have expressed repugnance for discrimination against nonresidents as far back as the early 1900s and recognized that it was out of date even in their time, it is the refusal of Washington courts to question the constitutionality of such legislative enactments which has allowed this injustice to continue unabated for almost 100 years. It is time that the courts in Washington finally realize that such discriminatory legislation must succumb to the protections provided by both the United States and Washington Constitutions and find these statutes unconstitutional. To do otherwise would allow a tortfeasor an “undeserved and morbid windfall” …

Flawed Justice: Limitation Of Parental Remedies For The Loss Of Consortium Of Adult Children, William S. Bailey

Articles

This article presents the inherent contradiction between a parent-child relationship that has steadily evolved from the early 20th Century to the present and the multitude of court decisions on damages that remain studiously ignorant of this shift.

Part I of the article will set forth the common law origins of restrictions on recovery for wrongful death within the context of a shifting view of children from economic units to objects of adoration. Part II will examine the devastating impact that the loss of an adult child has on parents both from their perspectives and from now existing research.

In the …

Torts: Nealis V. Baird: The Oklahoma Supreme Court Extends Fetal Rights In Wrongful Death Suits But Leaves Important Questions Unanswered, Cory Hicks

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Kentucky Law Survey: Torts, Ronald L. Green

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Survivability Of Noneconomic Damages For Tortious Death In Washington, Steve Andrews

Seattle University Law Review

The focus of this Comment will be the 1993 amendment to Washington's general survival statute. In particular, the goal is to interpret how noneconomic damages for tortious death are to be treated under the new survival statute and to answer the question of what noneconomic damages are available to the victim's survivors. Because of Washington's complex statutory scheme, each of five potentially applicable statutes will be examined for available noneconomic damages, the survivability of these damages, the beneficiaries of the action, and possible duplication of damages. In answering these questions, this comment will also address the issue of survivability of …

Holsten V. Massey: The Coexistence Of The Public Duty Doctrine And The Governmental Tort Claims And Insurance Reform Act, Stephanie M. Bonnett

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Torts—Wrongful Death: A Viable Fetus Is Not A "Person" Under The Arkansas Wrongful Death Statute. Chatelain V. Kelley, 322 Ark. 517, 910 S.W.2d 215 (1995)., Brenda Daugherty Snow

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ohio Tort Reform In 1998: The War Continues, Stephen J. Werber

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

For more than a decade a war has been waged between forces seeking legislative reform of tort law, with emphasis on product liability, and the Ohio Supreme Court. The battleground has been the legislative enactments of the Ohio General Assembly. This legislation has faced consistent challenge before the court as a proper exercise of its power of judicial review. Time and time again the court's philosophical approach, predicated on a need to protect injured parties and guarantee compensation for harm, has led to determinations that given legislation fails constitutional scrutiny. In a real sense, the Court has become a super …

After Farley V. Sartin: The Consequences Of Declaring A Nonviable Fetus A Person For The Purpose Of Wrongful Death, Stacie L. Lude

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Farley V. Sartin And Tort Claims For The Wrongful Death Of A Nonviable Fetus: Paradigms, Imponderables And Proposals, Teree Foster

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

To Recover Or Not To Recover: A State By State Survey Of Fetal Wrongful Death Law, Jill D. Washburn Helbling

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Relational And Liberal Feminism: The Ethic Of Care, Fetal Personhood And Autonomy, Joyce E. Mcconnell

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.