Damages for Injuries That Cause Death

This lesson covers the common law rules and various statutory approaches governing recovery of damages for injuries resulting in death. Questions and problems in the lesson consider the circumstances under which and the extent to which damages are available to protect the interests of persons who die as a result of tortious injuries and the interests of the survivors of those persons.

Students working on the lesson are required to solve problems by parsing and applying statutory language of survivor statutes and wrongful death statutes drawn from eleven different states.

Completion of the lesson on Damages for Personal Injuries prior to working on this lesson is highly recommended.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, students will be able to:

1. Discuss common law rules and various statutory approaches governing recovery of damages for injuries resulting in death.
2. Distinguish the different interests addressed by survival statutes and wrongful death statutes.
3. Analyze how to calculate damages under survival statutes and wrongful death statutes.
4. Explain the limitations upon recovery that such statutes are likely to contain.
5. Construct a statutory provision to address a problem of coordination between survival and wrongful death statutes.