Damages Recovered from Wrongful Death

In the event of a wrongful death claim, individuals may be able to obtain certain damages. Attorney Glendell Nix of Nix Law Group in Oklahoma explains these types of damages including loss of consortium and medical and burial expenses of the deceased.

Under Oklahoma law, the statutes spell out exactly what damages may be recovered. They include the medical and burial expenses of the deceased; they include the loss of consortium and grief of the surviving spouse. A loss of consortium means such things as a loss of love and affection of the surviving spouse. Also recoverable is the mental pain and suffering of the deceased that led to his or her death. Also recoverable is the loss of companionship and grief of the children, loss of companionship and grief of the parents. Pecuniary loss, its sort of a word that is not very common word but its what we call it in the legal community, which means that the loss of earnings and earning capacity for example if you have a husband that has minor children and a spouse and he is earning a living for the family and he dies and lets say he is 35, 40 years old, well for the next 20, 25 years he would have been earning on his job and helping provide income to the family. Those are pecuniary losses which the family is entitled to recover in a wrongful death case. That won't always apply because sometimes the deceased person is no longer employed but even when he or she is not employed, they provide certain benefits to the household, mowing the lawn, doing chores around the house that they can no longer do that may have to be done by other people who have to be paid. And those are part of the pecuniary loss that are recoverable in a wrongful death case. In some cases, you may also recover punitive damages. Those are not recoverable in most cases; you can only recover punitive damages when the conduct of the person who caused the death has been really bad, typically gross negligence. Most cases don’t fall into that category, but some do and so those damages are also recoverable in a wrongful death case. If you have more questions about wrongful death or any other personal injury matters, give us a call at nix law group at 405-509-2000 or visit us on our website at oklahomainjurylaw.com