- December 25, 2020
How to Prove Your Wrongful Death Claim in California?
If you have lost your loved one due to the negligence of another person or entity, you can seek wrongful death damages under the California laws. These damages typically include the associated medical costs, funeral and burial costs as well as damages for loss of companionship, financial support and other non-economic losses.
However, you must be able to prove your wrongful death claim to recover these damages. This means providing the relevant evidence to back your claim. This also means that your claim must meet various other legal requirements. In addition, you must be able to show that you are eligible to seek damages on behalf of the deceased as per the state laws.
Here is a look at various aspects of proving a wrongful death claim. Your claim must cover all these aspects in order to be successful.
Proof of Negligence
The first and the foremost thing to prove in a wrongful death claim is negligence. You must be able to demonstrate that the death of your loved one was caused by the negligence of a party. This may be a person, a company or any other entity. Legally speaking, the proof of negligence must cover the following:- Duty of care. It must be shown that the deceased was owed a duty of care by the party you are holding responsible.
- Breach of duty of care. Once you have established duty of care in the first step, you must then show that the liable party breached this duty of care. A driver who drives recklessly and causes an accident, for instance, has breached the duty of care owed by one driver to another.
- Harm caused by the breach. The harm that led to the death of a person must have been caused directly by the breach of duty of care.
- Loss caused by the death. Even if you have proven the three elements listed above, you must then prove your loss. You will be required to prove that you suffered an emotional or financial loss due to the death of the victim.
Intentional Harm
In many cases, a wrongful death is caused by the unintentional negligence of a person. A driver who runs a red light may have been acting recklessly and breached duty of care. However, he may have no deliberate intention of harming a person. This is in contrast to cases where deliberate intent is involved. This is when a person intentionally harms another person, resulting in the death of the latter. Wrongful death claims in such cases revolve around proving intentional harm on the part of the accused. If you have lost a loved one in an incident like this, you will need to show that:- The person you are holding responsible had the intention of harming the victim
- The liable person made contact with the victim. The nature of this contact was non-consensual and violent.
- The contact resulted in harm to the victim, ultimately causing his or her death.