How Do You Prove Wrongful Death?

All civil lawsuits in Arizona, including wrongful death claims, have specific elements you must prove to win your case. In this post, we discuss what goes into carrying a plaintiff’s burden of persuasion in a wrongful death suit.

If you would like to speak with an attorney about a wrongful death case, please call Stone Rose Law at (480) 631-3025 or use our contact form.

What are the Elements of a Wrongful Death Claim?

There are four elements to a wrongful death claim. You must prove that all of the below happened:

1. The defendant owed your deceased family member a duty of reasonable care.
2. The defendant breached that duty.
3. The breach of duty was the direct or proximate cause of your loved one’s death.
4. You suffered harm as a result of the death of your loved one.

Next, let’s consider proof considerations for each of these elements.

The Existence of a Duty of Reasonable Care

A duty of reasonable care to others depends on the circumstances. 

For example, when a person drives a car, the duty of reasonable care includes obeying traffic laws and traffic signals, driving in a way that is safe given the existing weather, lighting, and road conditions, and not driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

In a slip-and-fall wrongful death suit, a property owner or manager’s reasonable duty of care can include addressing dangerous conditions on the property in a timely manner and alerting non-trespassers of their existence.

When proving the duty of reasonable care existed, your attorney will need to identify the circumstances surrounding the act, or failure to act, that caused the harm that led to your loved one’s death. Then, your attorney will need to establish what the defendant’s reasonable duty of care was under those circumstances. This is a fact-specific consideration that will vary from case to case.

Violation of the Duty of Care

Once you have shown that the defendant owed your deceased loved one a duty of reasonable care, you will need to prove that the defendant did not observe that duty. The violation of the duty of reasonable care can be the result of negligence, recklessness, or even an intentional act. This is another fact-specific process that will depend on the evidence your attorney presents to the jury:

• In a car accident situation, you can do this by providing evidence like the defendant was speeding, or ignored a traffic signal, or was driving while texting, or was intoxicated when the accident happened.
• In a slip and fall case, evidence that the defendant knew or should have known of a dangerous condition on the property and did nothing to either correct it or warn your loved one about it shows a negligent breach of the duty of care.
• In a product liability-based case, you will need to show that the defendant manufacturer or seller sold a product that was designed or made in a way that made it inherently dangerous to use, even when used as intended.

The Breach of the Duty of Care Caused Your Loved One’s Death

Lawyers refer to causation in a personal injury lawsuit or a wrongful death suit as “proximate causation.” What this means is that to prove causation, the defendant’s breach of the duty of care must have been either the direct cause of death or the proximate cause of the death. In other words, the defendant’s act cannot be so tangentially or indirectly connected to the death.

This connection between the breach of duty and the ensuing death that resulted makes this element the most challenging to prove in a wrongful death lawsuit. Defendants will often claim that some other act or circumstance was the true cause of death, including, just to name a few:

• The death was the result of a pre-existing injury or condition.
• An intervening act or circumstance unrelated to the defendant’s act was the real cause of death.
• A third party’s negligent act was the actual cause of death – like a scenario where someone was injured, went to the hospital and died, the defendant will try to blame the death on the doctors as opposed to themself.
• The deceased person was engaging in an activity in which he or she assumed the risk that death could occur, like skydiving, scuba diving, or bungee jumping.

Your attorney will need to present evidence that is compelling enough to persuade a jury that it was, in fact, the defendant’s act that led to the loss of your loved one, and to anticipate and overcome any alternative causation explanations the defense can be expected to offer. This can include calling upon expert witnesses, accident reconstruction specialists, and medical professionals.

You Suffered Harm as a Result of Your Loved One’s Death

Even if you are able to prove the first three elements above, you will still need to show that the loss of your family member has caused you harm. Arizona law recognizes several ways that you can prove harm to you in a wrongful death action. 

Harm can be broken down into three categories: 

• Economic damages – like lost wages and income, medical bills, and burial expenses
• Non-economic damages – loss of companionship and consortium
• Punitive damages – in cases where the death was the result of an intentional act and/or criminal act

Proving Economic Damages

Economic damages are also known as direct damages. These are types of harm that you can prove through cost calculations and billing costs. Examples of economic damages include:

• Medical expenses you paid for the decedent’s health care in connection with the death-causing event.
• The lost wages the decedent would have earned had he or she survived.
• Funeral expenses and burial costs.

Proving Non-economic Damages

Non-economic damages, also known as indirect damages, are harder to prove than direct damages because they are more subjective. Examples of non-economic harm you can suffer include:

• Loss of companionship, consortium, love and affection, support, and guidance
• Emotional distress and mental anguish
• Depression and anxiety

Proving noneconomic damages may rely on evidence including witness testimony about the effects the decedent’s death has had on you, testimony of mental health professionals, and your own testimony.

Despite their more challenging proof requirements, non-economic damages are important to establish because often, once you can convince the jury that you have suffered them, they often result in higher damages awards than direct damages do. A wrongful death lawsuit that results in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of direct damages costs can include non-economic damages amounts of millions of dollars.

Proving Punitive Damages

Punitive damages, sometimes called exemplary damages, are not allowable in every wrongful death suit. 

To be entitled to them, you must present evidence to show that the defendant’s conduct was intentional, malicious, or otherwise so egregious that an award of non-economic damages will not suffice to address the nature of the harm you have suffered.

What constitutes egregious conduct in the minds of a jury can mean presenting evidence allowing them to conclude what the defendant’s state of mind was at the time of the death-causing event. This can include testimonial evidence of witnesses, expert witnesses, video recordings, material evidence, and circumstantial evidence.

What is Your Burden of Persuasion in a Wrongful Death Lawsuit?

In a civil lawsuit like a wrongful death action, unlike in a criminal case, you will not need to prove each of the four elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Your burden of persuasion in a civil case is instead based on showing a “preponderance of the evidence” that each element is met.

This is another way of saying that your evidence must convince the jury: that it is more likely than not that the defendant’s behavior and its consequences satisfy each element. Sometimes this is expressed in mathematical terms: if the jury concludes that it was 51% likely that your evidence proves an element of your claim, then your burden of persuasion has been met.

• If, for example, you are seeking punitive damages, you must prove by a preponderance of evidence that the defendant acted intentionally, maliciously, or in an especially egregious manner.
• If your claim is based on negligent actions of the defendant, then you must show by a preponderance of the evidence that in committing the wrongful act, the defendant knew or should have known that his or her acts could foreseeably cause the harm that resulted.
• If your wrongful death action is based on harm caused by a defective product, then you must show that it is more likely than not that the product was dangerous as designed or manufactured.

What Kinds of Evidence Can You Use in a Wrongful Death Claim?

Some of the types of evidence you can introduce in a wrongful death lawsuit include your own testimony, the testimony of expert and non-expert witnesses, and documentary evidence like medical records and medical bills.

Your wrongful death attorney will do a thorough factual investigation of your claim to identify what kinds of evidence you will need to receive compensation through settlement or litigation and what kinds of evidence are available.

Some of the kinds of evidence your attorney can gather include:

• Tangible or material evidence: This includes evidence that a juror can touch or see.
• Photographic evidence: This includes photos of the scene where the decedent’s injury occurred, images of the injuries sustained, and videos from dashcams, doorbells, or surveillance cameras. 
• Documentary evidence: These are records like medical evaluations and diagnoses, medical and hospice bills, police reports, wage earning statements, journals, insurance estimates, property damage invoices, and other documentation that shows the harm suffered or its costs.
• Reconstructive evidence: This kind of evidence helps to establish how the fatal incident occurred and how it caused the injury or other cause of your loved one’s death.
• Testimonial evidence: Statements by your loved one before dying, eyewitnesses to what happened, and opinions of medical experts are all forms of evidence admissible in a wrongful death claim. If the defendant testifies, cross-examination of that person’s testimony can also be used to help prove your case.  
• Communication evidence: Any texts, emails, phone calls, and voicemail messages that are relevant to proving your case can be helpful in establishing what happened or even the state of mind of the defendant, like admissions of fault.

Have You Lost a Family Member and Believe Someone Else is at Fault?

Proving that another person’s acts led to the loss of a loved one is a matter of establishing facts through evidence. Even though most wrongful death claims settle out of court, it is still necessary to collect enough persuasive evidence to convince an insurance company of the defendant or defendants to negotiate seriously with you, and to see that you recover compensation for the loss of your loved one.

At Stone Rose Law, our wrongful death attorneys are highly skilled in investigating wrongful death cases. We will identify everyone who is potentially liable and gather as much evidence as possible to prove each element of a wrongful death lawsuit against them in civil court.

We will negotiate with defense attorneys and insurance claim adjusters on your behalf to ensure you do not become a victim of a lowball settlement offer. If necessary, we will represent you in a civil action for wrongful death should negotiations not yield sufficient financial compensation.

Call us at (480) 631-3025 or contact us online to schedule a free consultation with a Phoenix wrongful death attorney.