There are different kinds of damages that can be claimed involving the death of an adult in a personal injury claim. Most of the time, the most significant head of loss is financial dependency. This is where the partners and/or family members were partly or fully reliant on the income generated by the deceased.

Now, the key to correctly valuing a fatal accident claim that includes a dependency claim is the assessment of work and income potential and life expectancy of the deceased. Anyone who makes a claim (the claimant) has to prove that they depended on the income of the deceased, and that should the accident not have occurred, it’s most likely that the deceased would have lived and continued with working and producing income.

Then again, it’s not all the time that the deceased is one who would have worked until normal retirement age, lived until average old age or have the same pre-accident level of income. There are a number of cases where the ability of the deceased to provide for their dependents have been challenged, or in certain cases, be difficult to determine. Examples of cases like these are those involving people with health problems, a mixed work history or in the beginning stages of a professional career or running a business.

There are also cases where the dependents claim for dependency would be called into question. Let’s illustrate this with an example. Suppose a surviving spouse if afflicted with HIV and is seeking asylum in the UK where she is benefiting from the provision of retroviral drugs. However, the solicitors of the defendant can argue that her application for asylum has a chance to fail.

As a result, the spouse would go back to her home country which doesn’t offer quality HIV care, and as such, her life expectancy would be shortened as is her claim for dependency. Suppose an expert in HIV/AIDS in the claimant’s side was able to provide ample evidence that yes, with the right drugs, the spouse has a fighting chance to live. This will result in a failure of the defense and a win for the surviving spouse.

Let’s use another example to highlight different aspects of claiming. The husband of a claimant suffered a stroke the year prior to being killed in a road traffic accident. The husband was in his 50s and hadn’t been working the entire year, but held conversations with his employer before he died regarding the possibility of returning to work.

Now, if the husband had gone back to work and retired early because of his underlying poor health, this could shorten the dependency claim. But what if a court-preferred cardiologist is able to provide evidence that the deceased could have worked longer had the defendant given him credit for completely giving up smoking, taking his medication an performing exercises recommended by his doctor? A situation like this could result in something positive for the surviving spouse.

The takeaway here is that reliable and expert evidence that supports the length of the dependency claimed is so important in claims involving dependency. A deep look into the work and health history of the deceased, as well as their future plans is vital. In other words, a complete understanding of the deceased as well as their family is crucial in presenting the right claim.

There has been a setback in the wrongful death case of the family of Byron Carter Junior against the local police department. The judge did not let some of the evidence to go to the jury.

According to My Fox Austin, “A federal judge didn’t allow memos by the offices of the Police Monitor and the Citizens Review Panel to be entered as evidence for the jury to consider … The memos recommended Austin police officer, Nathan Wagner’s termination because he violated department policy by using excessive force.

“They also said Wagner racially profiled two black men, Carter and Lee Webb. Both Officers Wagner and Jeffrey Rodriguez also testified to what happened May 30th, 2011.”

Massachusetts gun-maker Kahr Arms settled a wrongful death lawsuit for $600,000. According to the lawsuit, Danny Guzman who was 26-years-old at the time was killed outside of a Worcester nightclub in 1999 after a gun was smuggled out from the company by an employee who was a known criminal.

According to Star News Online, “In a 2002 wrongful death suit against Kahr Arms, of Worcester, Guzman’s family alleged that the gun was stolen and later sold by a Kahr employee with a criminal record.

“The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence announced the settlement in Washington, D.C., calling it the largest damages payment ever made by a gun manufacturer accused of negligence leading to the criminal use of a gun.”

The family of Danny Guzman said that Kahr Arms should have done more to protect the public such as run background checks on their employees and install metal detectors at the doors of the facility.

When New York City officials ignored blizzard warnings then failed to call for a snow emergency this lead to direful consequences. At least this is the contention of a family who lost their 75-year-old mother due to a heart attack and an ambulance that was 3 hours late in arriving due to the snow.

Because the streets were not plowed and because it took 45 minutes for 911 operators to answer the phone calls for help, the family of Yvonne Freeman is suing for wrongful death. The $20 million lawsuit is the first blizzard related wrongful death suit in America’s largest city.

The Freeman family is suing multiple agencies within NYC stating severe negligence in this case. The family also wants the city to make policy changes so that no one else will ever die again because of inaction of city officials to call a state of emergency when obviously necessary.

They may be the happiest places on earth for the visitors who go to Disney World or Sea World in Florida. But, two recent high profile death concerning employees at both places are leaving the families of the departed wondering if and how much each facility will be held accountable for the deaths of their loved ones.

Austin Wuennenberg, a Disney World monorail driver was killed July 5, 2009. Wuennenberg’s mother has served Disney World with a wrongful death lawsuit.

On February, 24, 2010, Sea World Orca trainer, Dawn Brancheau was killed by the largest of the whales, Tilikum. Brancheau’s husband has sought legal representation but has not filed a lawsuit yet.

According to lawyers and lawmakers in Florida, both cases are either likely to fail or come up short in regard to compensation compared to employees in other states. Laws favoring businesses against employees have been strengthened over the past 10 years in regard to caps on damages and standards of evidence that need to be presented by plaintiffs in order to win their cases.