How Jury Awards Are Calculated in North Carolina Wrongful Death Cases

No amount of compensation can ever replace the life of your mother, father, spouse, or child. A strong wrongful death settlement or verdict holds the wrongdoer accountable for the tragic death of your loved one. High wrongful death recoveries help families move forward so the family members can pay the funeral and burial costs, help pay the mortgage and rent, provide for a child’s education, and have money for the other necessities of life. A strong verdict helps families honor their loved ones by living their best lives possible.

In North Carolina, the person who is appointed the personal representative (an executor named in a will or a court-appointed administrator) files the wrongful death claim on behalf of the family members and/or the estate of the decedent.

Our Charlotte wrongful death lawyers handle many different types of fatal accident claims, including:

• Car accidents
• Truck accidents
• Pedestrian accidents
• Bicycle accidents
• Motorcycle accidents
• Defective product cases
• Premises liability cases
• Medical malpractice
• Boating accidents
• Workplace accidents
• Construction/industrial accidents

North Carolina’s wrongful death statute provides that the beneficiaries of the estate (people entitled to benefits under the North Carolina intestate laws) are entitled to the following damages:

• The payment of the decedent’s funeral and burial expenses.
• Payment of any reasonable hospital and medical bills to care for and treat your loved one prior to the death of your family member.
• Any pain and suffering your loved one endured prior to dying.
• The present monetary value of the following:
  • The net income of the decedent. This is the amount your loved one would have earned during their lifetime if the accident had not occurred.
  • The value of the “services, protection, care, and assistance” your loved one would have provided the family members, whether voluntary or obligatory.
  • The value of the “society, companionship, comfort, guidance, kindly offices, and advice of the decedent” your loved one would have given each family member.
  • Any punitive damages your loved one would have been entitled to from the wrongdoers had your loved one survived. Punitive damages include payment for the “death of the decedent through malice or willful or wanton conduct.”
  • “Nominal damages when the jury so finds.”

What factors affect the value of a wrongful death case?

We often work with your loved one’s employer to assess the loss of financial support and with professionals who specialize in placing a value on the various wrongful death damages listed above.

Some of the factors that our wrongful death lawyers and the experts we employ consider include the following:

The amount of financial support your loved one would have provided

Some of the factors that we present to juries and judges (if your case doesn’t settle) include:

• The age, health, and life expectancy of your loved one at the time of their death
• Your loved one’s education, work experience, and career possibilities
• The promotions, raises, job incentives, overtime, bonuses, and benefits your loved one could reasonably expect to earn
• The general economy
• The typical retirement age for the type of work your loved one performed

The medical and funeral costs

These bills include any emergency transport and ambulance costs, the county coroner bills, any hospital bills to help try to save your loved one’s life or minimize their pain, any cremation or cemetery bills, and the costs of the memorial.

The value of the services they would have provided

These services generally include doing chores around the house and the expenses you now need to pay because your family member isn’t alive, such as hiring a babysitter or driving your child to their after-school activities. Experts can usually determine these costs by analyzing the various services your loved one would have provided and then working with experts who can place a value on how much each service would cost if another person or business provided the same service.

Non-economic damages

Some wrongful death damages are subjective, which means that there’s no precise way to calculate them through bills and financial records. That’s OK. Your family can still recover these non-economic damages. All that non-economic damages mean is that juries have more discretion in deciding how much these damages are worth.

Our Charlotte wrongful death lawyers work to show juries all the reasons why the family’s non-economic damages should be as high as possible. Some of the reasons that we present to juries include:

• Showing how long your loved one lived after the accident before passing away, the type of pain they were experiencing, whether they were conscious, medical reports from the attending physicians and healthcare professionals, and statements from the members of the family about your loved one’s pain.
• The ages of the decedent and the family members.
• The closeness of each family member to their loved one.
• Your loved one’s life expectancy.
• Many other factors.

At Price Petho & Associates, our lawyers have extensive experience fighting for families when a loved one dies and for the survivors of North Carolina accidents. Our record of success in wrongful death litigation includes:

• $2,000,000. We obtained this settlement amount (the policy limits) after a seven-hour mediation before a federal judge. We represented the family of a young man who was killed in a rear-end tractor-trailer accident in New Mexico.
• $500,000. Our lawyer obtained this verdict (the highest personal injury or wrongful death verdict in the county at the time of the case) for a patient’s family due to claims of medical malpractice (the failure to diagnose pulmonary embolism).

Our Charlotte, NC wrongful death lawyers will fight tenaciously to obtain the maximum benefits your family deserves and the maximum benefits that help honor your loved one. We only receive compensation if your claim is successful. Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.