After a major accident, a family suffers more losses than they want to count. A spouse, or a parent, or an adult child may have to pause their own life and help shoulder expenses. How can they begin to recover? In Maine, family members often have legal rights when they lose a close relative to an accidental death. Filing a York wrongful death action can never be easy, but you can be certain that Clark & Howell has a team of wrongful death attorneys dedicated to helping you through the process.
An accidental death can happen in almost any situation. Our York attorneys often help families file wrongful death cases involving:
In the aftermath, your family is laden with new costs: medical care, funerals and burials, domestic help, and other needs you would never have had without the accident.
In Maine, family members may have the right to recover damages to pay for these costs, as well as for the true losses and the grief they feel. How they can recover depends on who they lost and what their legal relationship was. Contact our team at Clark & Howell to learn more about who can file a wrongful death action and what damages you can pursue.
In Maine, only the personal representative of an estate (sometimes called an executor or administrator) can file a wrongful death suit in York. However, the damages belong to the heirs of the person who died. That money does not have to go through the estate, unless a judgement specifically sets it aside to pay expenses, under 18-C Maine Revised Statutes § 2-807.
The law grants the damages from a wrongful death suit to the relatives who would inherit if there were no will: the intestate heirs. In most cases, that means that the money goes to the surviving spouse, children, and/or parents. It is important to work this out with an attorney, since the share each person receives will depend on which relatives are living and how many there are.
When a deceased person had filed their own injury lawsuit, or could have done so, that claim survives. The estate representative can carry on that lawsuit, known as a survival action, and the estate will collect any damages that the person might have collected.
Our attorney’s job in helping you file a wrongful death lawsuit in York is to find out exactly what happened and how to prove it through thorough review of your case and a detailed investigation. Call us today to get your case started before important evidence is harder to secure. We investigate the people or companies who may be responsible and determine the best way to hold them accountable for damages.
There are two types of damages available. A family can claim economic damages for their tangible losses, such as expenses and the loss of future earnings the deceased may have had. Non-economic damages recognize uncountable but very real losses: the loss of consortium, support, and pain and suffering. In rare cases involving malicious acts, a defendant may have to pay punitive damages to prevent similar behavior in the future.
As a litigator, Matthew Howell has looked after survivors in Maine and New Hampshire for almost 20 years. Our firm’s focus is not on big ads or volume of cases; instead, it is on you and your loved one’s legacy. Call us today to start talking about your options for filing a York wrongful death action.
(207) 363-5208
(207) 363-5208