Get justice for a loved one's wrongful death with a Judnich Law negligent death attorney. Experienced, compassionate, and dedicated.
Lose a loved one to a car accident? A Judnich Law negligent death attorney can help. We vigorously go after the party responsible for the negligent behavior.
When an accident that’s not your fault causes personal injury and death, that is wrongful death. When an individual dies as a result of someone else’s negligence, this is called negligent death or wrongful death. The deceased person's family members, usually via the decedent's personal representative, may be able to file a wrongful death claim. This is a civil case.
There is essentially no difference between the terms "wrongful death" and "negligent death" claims under the law. There are some weird situations where a wrongful death could have been done intentionally, but the vast majority of these claims are negligence-based, not intention-based. So, a negligence claim associated with a death can be referred to under both terms of wrongful death or negligent death.
Negligence that results in the death of another person usually happens in only a few scenarios: product malfunction, medical malpractice, homicide, and motor vehicle accidents.
An unfortunately common example of a negligent death claim is where a person is killed in a motor vehicle collision that is the fault of another driver.
Negligent death lawyers at Judnich Law Firm seek justice for families of individuals killed in car or truck accidents.
When someone is killed by the negligence of another person, the deceased’s family can bring a civil lawsuit against the responsible party and the insurance company for that person. Usually, the estate's personal representative is considered the main client.
The personal representative of the decedent’s estate, usually a surviving family member of the deceased person, has the right to file a wrongful death claim.
Typically, we represent a group of family members who band together as a unit in these kinds of cases, but the official client is only the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate.
In Montana, the statute of limitations is 3 years from the date of the deceased person’s death.
However, if the wrongful death resulted from wrongful homicide, that statute of limitations increases to 10 years.
The statute of limitations means only that the matter must be filed with the appropriate court before the statute of limitations runs out.
A wrongful death lawyer will seek compensation on your behalf in the following categories:
There is no legal maximum recovery for a wrongful death.
Compensation for the surviving family of the deceased person in a motor vehicle accident comes from two sources: adverse insurance carrier, and personal assets of the responsible party. There is often an insurance maximum policy limit issue that comes into play, but an experienced wrongful death attorney must also look at potential personal assets in addition to insurance for the responsible party for such a case.
This gets very serious and complicated very quickly. There are matters of applying all possible relevant insurance policies and then probing into the responsible party’s private assets.
Having an experienced advocate on your side for this process is a must. Working with a specialized attorney for wrongful death will streamline the process and most likely get you a greater settlement.
Judnich Law attorneys can help you through this process, every step of the way. Many families have trusted us with their wrongful death lawsuits, and we are pleased to have managed to achieve very satisfactory settlements for them (under the circumstances, of course).
A wrongful death action requires that the wronged party proves the negligent party was indeed negligent. In a motor vehicle accident, this is usually pretty straightforward. We check blood alcohol content (BAC), traveling speed, and whether any other laws were violated. A police report is usually a primary piece of evidence in an auto accident.
The burden of proof is on the plaintiff in a wrongful death or other personal injury matter. That means that it is up to us to prove that the other party was negligent in causing the death of your loved one.
Punitive damages are aimed to punish the wrongdoer for the negligence. These kinds of damages can be quite high in some cases, and non-existent in others.
Punitive damages are determined by the judge or jury. We typically see higher punitive damages in product malfunction and medical malpractice kinds of wrongful death cases than in motor vehicles accidents, but we can also get punitive damages for vehicle accidents sometimes.
Wrongful death attorneys represent family members who have just lost a loved one to a tragic death. The grief is very heavy, and people are not their best selves, perhaps not able to file the necessary paperwork. Yet, you want to seek justice for your tragic loss. A wrongful death attorney will take care of everything legally so that the family members can just focus on healing.
Also, insurance companies will not pay out top dollar to family members for wrongful death claims without an attorney on board. This is because the insurance companies are in the business of making profit, not giving away their money. Representatives are trained to keep settlement offers low unless an attorney for wrongful death gets involved. At that point, we instantly start to see higher numbers in settlement offers.
Judnich Law negligent death lawyers are in the business of working on these kinds of cases. We know what is fair and appropriate compensation for the pain, suffering, and expenses that accompany the wrongful death of a loved one.
We are familiar with the standard of care for your particular kind of loss, and we do not let up until the insurance company reaches that settlement figure. We will happily—and vigorously—take your case all the way through trial to a jury verdict if that is called for. We do not let up. We fight passionately for justice for your loss.
Our clients come to us because they need real help. In negligent death cases in particular, we understand that the last thing you want to be dealing with right now is going after the person responsible for you losing your loved one. We do everything we can to make this process easier on you.
As part of this directive, we proudly offer an online portal so our clients can enjoy 24/7 access to their files. You can review correspondence, court documents, relevant law, and more. You can upload materials to your portal and send us messages through it. In this way, we alleviate all of the frustration people tend to feel when they can’t get hold of their lawyer for a simple question. You have the freedom to simply look up what you want to know. There is total transparency, and you have total access. This helps our clients stress a lot less because they can always know exactly what is happening in their case, and it helps us free up our time to work on building strong cases for our clients who trust us.
If you need to reach us after hours, our live answering service will immediately take your message and send us a text.
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