Lawsuits involving wrongful deaths have been filed for many years; for example, in the famous OJ Simpson case, he may have been found “not-guilty” of murder, but the family of Nicole Brown Simpson did indeed securea wrongful death conviction in a California court a few years later.A wrongful death lawsuit is one that is brought against a potentially negligent person in the hopes of securing monetary compensation for the loss of the loved one. If it can be proven in a court of law that the death did occur due to the negligent actions of the accused, there may be compensation available to the family.However when the death has been allegedy caused by the negligent behaviorof a corporation or company (rather than an individual), a wrongful death filing is sometimes the only route a family can persue. For example a person who has smoked for his whole life and dies from lung cancer may have a wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of the family they left behind on the company that produced his favorite cigarettes.A wrongful death lawsuit follows rules and laws that were passed for several reasons. First, it was a way to forcefully get money from a negligent party for the death of another. Second, the fact that one could sue for negligence made people think twice about performing grossly negiligent acts that resulted in the death of others. Although a wrongful death conviction is not a criminal offense, it is a method to obtain money from those who have been negligent. It can provide the family of the deceased with not only monetary damages, but with a sense of emotional closure as well.Monetary DamagesAlthough the amount of money awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit can vary when comparing state to state, there are certain elementary laws that all states comply with. Wrongful death laws can dictate the cap as to the dmages that can be awarded by juries, and to whom the awarded money can go to. Several states go as far as to set caps on what can be awarded, while others do not set this restriction.Especially in the cases where the decedent has made no money (as in the case of a small child) the courts may have particular difficulty setting a compensation amount. How do you value the life of a son or daughter? In cases like these, it is next to impossible to arrive at an accurate amount for the value of a life. Even though this is difficult to do, courts have to come up with a number to award in these types of cases.The Government : Can You Sue?Government was once protected from the ability to be sued, a concept called sovereign immunity. Hoever this has been nullified. Instead, citizens can now sue municipalities for what they perceive are negligent actions.Who to Call with a Wrongful Death QuestionA personal injury lawyer raleigh who has the legal experience you need is the one to consult. This could potentially help you case to have someone of the highest legal caliber. They can offer the advice you may need to make a decision as to whether to file a wrongful death lawsuit or not. Just give them a call. To obtain top legal assistance, please consult a personal injury attorney in raleigh.
Posts tagged ‘Death’
Cancer affected people are struggling hard to live and it is necessary to be aware of proper Information on Cancer in order to improve the survival rate. The main objective of this article is to introduce the reader about the general aspects of cancer. However, today there are various websites available on the internet that provides fitness news and Natural Health News, wherein the reader can have the basic knowledge about any health disease. The uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells anywhere in a body is called cancer. These abnormal cells are termed as cancer cells, tumor cells or malignant cells. The three most common cancers in men are lung, colorectal and prostate, while in women breast cancer, colorectal and lung cancer is prevalent. The most common type of cancer occurring in children is leukemia, brain tumor, and lymphoma.
The cancer type and incidence of cancer may be influenced by many factors such as age, sex, local environment factor, diet and genetics. Consequently, the incidence of cancer and cancer types vary depending on these variable factors. According to researcher, there are two groups The World Health Organization provides the general Fitness News. Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. The causes of most cancerous deaths are lung cancer, stomach cancer, liver colon cancer, and breast cancer that happen every year. Cancer is caused either due to environment or due to hereditary genetic cause. The general factor that leads to cancer is due to environmental factor that include tobacco, infection, radiation, lack of physical activity, obesity and environmental pollutants. The American Cancer Society recommends general people to go for cancer screening test on regular basis. Most of the times, people are aware only when cancer reach to a higher stage when it becomes very difficult to cure.
Somehow, chemotherapeutic agents work as magic bullet and prove beneficial to the cancer patients who are at metastasized stage. However, efforts has been made by Scientist and Doctors to find new methods of treatment and prevention to decrease the survival rate of cancer patients and able to provide quality life. Various websites provide natural health news and information on cancer for creating awareness among the masses. The main purpose of all the health websites is to make the people aware about the diseases. The website is designed in such a manner that reader can access various health related articles and fitness news that deals in every day life. These websites guide the reader in right direction and provide ocean full of information.
The death of a loved one is often an unexpected, tragic event. This occurrence is made even more painful when the death is a result of somebody else’s negligence or willful misconduct that could have been prevented. After you have recovered from the initial shock, you should consider the circumstances surrounding your loved one’s death. If you suspect that a person or an organization might be liable for your loss, you should talk with an experienced wrongful death attorney.
The attorney will listen to you as you explain the situation, evaluate your legal options, and recommend the most appropriate course of action. In some situations, it might be in your best interests to file a wrongful death lawsuit. The following is a list of three situations in which lawyers often recommend filing a wrongful death lawsuit.
1. Your loved one was killed by a defective drug. The manufacturers and distributors of drugs and medical devices have a duty to offer reasonably safe products to the public. If they fail to fully research the medication before introducing it to the market, conceal significant side effects or fail to remove the product when they learn about side effects, they might be liable for the consequences. This means that the pharmaceutical companies might have to provide adequate compensation for internal and external injuries, emotional distress, lost income and wrongful death of individuals who took the tainted drugs. Many defective drugs deaths in recent years have been attributed to aggressively marketed medications such as Vioxx, Bextra, Avandia, Hydroxycut and Fen-Phen.
2. Your loved one died of mesothelioma. Until Congress outlawed asbestos several decades ago, it was used widely in construction, insulation and military applications. As a result, millions of unsuspecting victims were exposed to the substance. Alarmingly, asbestos exposure has been linked to the onset of asbestosis and mesothelioma-two serious diseases. If your loved one died due to mesothelioma, you should talk with a wrongful death lawyer. Often, the link between asbestos exposure and your loved one’s illness might be obscure due the passage of 50 or 60 years between exposure and the onset of symptoms. A resourceful attorney can help you investigate the possible asbestos exposure and recover just compensation for you emotional suffering, lost companionship and diminution in lifestyle.
3. Your loved one was killed in a car crash. Motor vehicle accidents happen every day. While some of them are purely accidental occurrences, others are caused by somebody’s negligence or willful wrongdoing. For instance, drivers operating their vehicles while under the influence of alcohol or drugs (DUI) might be held responsible for the injuries and deaths resulting from their actions. In addition to the fault of drunk drivers, some accidents are caused by faulty vehicle design or manufacturing flaws. Some notorious examples include sudden acceleration due to mechanical failures in Toyota vehicles and propensity toward rollovers in many SUVs. If your loved one’s death was caused by a defective vehicle, your attorney might recommend filing a defective products death lawsuit to recover rightful remuneration.
In the past few years, The California Hospital and Medical Associations commissioned study on medical malpractice insurance. The study exposed disgusting results – that one out of every twenty patients who sought treatment in hospitals were injured because of medical mismanagement, and one out of every ten patients died as a result.
Similar, a study conducted by a team from Harvard in over fifty hospitals in New York revealed that of the 31,000 hospital records reviewed, nearly 8,000 showed evidence of possible medical injury. According to the Institute of Medicine, there are about 100,000 people die each year from medical misconduct errors. Here are some most common medical injuries, which occur because of doctors or staff negligence:
Birth Injuries
Complications in childbirth can cause injury or death to the baby, the mother, or both, especially when the attending doctor fails to deliver adequate care before or during the delivery. The inadequate care may be through failure to administer blood tests to detect abnormalities, failure to recognize the signs of fetal distress, failure to provide proper prenatal care, failure to recognize the signs of respiratory distress, failure to perform a Caesarian section where it was necessary, hastening the delivery process resulting in breech delivery and broken bones, or failure to properly care for a premature baby. The doctor’s negligence could result in the following:
Make sure to hire a Birth Injury Attorney to put a pressure on Medical Staff and safe your child.
Surgical Injuries
Many medical malpractice injuries happen in the operating room, usually because of poor pre-operative planning and care. Mistakes such as the improper or untimely administration of anesthesia, improper surgical technique, accidentally puncturing or cutting internal organs, operating on the wrong body part or the wrong patient, leaving surgical instruments or materials inside the body, and failing to diagnose and treat post-operative infections can result in the following:
Infections, Septicemia and Bleeding
Sterile conditions are critical during surgeries in order to prevent infection. Failure to maintain a sterile environment in surgeries has proven to cause infections and/or bleeding, sometimes with fatal results. Infections are also known to be caused during blood transfusions, particularly when the wrong blood type is given in emergency situations. Hospitals are required by law to have infection protocols, and to monitor surgery patients to avoid infections and excessive bleeding.
Misdiagnoses or Failure to Diagnose
There are cases when a person’s life depends on what the doctor does or does not do. It is the doctor’s responsibility to find out if there is something wrong with the patient, and what that is. To this end, the doctor must order medical tests and closely review the test results to help determine the patient’s illness. Wrong diagnosis or the failure to diagnose an illness can sometimes lead to serious diseases, chronic pain, or even death. Some of the most common undiagnosed illnesses are:
The doctor’s negligence in examining and ordering tests to make a correct judgment on illnesses can also lead to misdiagnosis of:
All of these above injuries occur because of incorrect dosages, prescription of the wrong medicine, incorrect combinations of medications and wrong prescription of medicine. As a result, a medicine instead of healing the patient, cause severe allergic reactions and sometimes death.
The announcement of Patrick Swayze’s cancer diagnosis in January 2008 followed by his demise on September 15, 2009, only 20 months later, was both tragic and a reminder that we have a long way to go in cancer treatment.
Patrick Swayze was only 57 years old when he lost his struggle to cancer. His memorable roles in Ghost and Dirty Dancing made him one of Hollywood’s great. And while we may glamorize the life of the stars, we know that money cannot buy health or even guarantee a cure to cancer.
Cancer
More than 11 million people are diagnosed with cancer every year and the numbers keep on growing. Cancer causes seven million deaths every year or 12.5 percent of deaths worldwide.
It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, poor, young or old. Every person on the planet is at risk of cancer. Famous actors like Robert DeNiro, Diahann Carroll and Christina Applegate, singers like Sheryl Crow and Kylie Minogue have all suffered from cancer.
Cancer is the uncontrolled growth and spread of cells that may affect almost any tissue of the body. Lung, colorectal and stomach cancer affect both men and women, while prostate cancer only occurs in men and cervical cancer only occurs in women. Breast cancer more commonly affects women, but can also affect men.
Pancreatic Cancer
Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January 2008. This is cancer which originates from the pancreas – a hormonal organ found tucked away behind the intestines in the abdomen. The ‘hidden’ location of the pancreas means that symptoms of cancer are often subtle. There is also no screening test to check for pancreatic cancer making it difficult to detect.
Pancreatic cancer is not the most common type of cancer but it is the fifth leading cause of cancer death worldwide. For most people the diagnosis is only made very late in the course of the illness. Swayze already had stage IV pancreatic cancer at the time of diagnosis. This means the cancer had already spread to other organs in the body, in his case, the liver.
In general, the larger a cancer is and the further it has spread at the time of diagnosis, the worse the outlook for the sufferer is. Despite his advanced disease Patrick completed his work on his television show The Beast, conducted several interviews and campaigned for cancer research during his final months.
What causes pancreatic cancer?
Nobody is certain as to what causes pancreatic cancer. Like so many other cancers most experts believe it is a combination of both your genetics and lifestyle which triggers the disease.
We know the following factors will increase your risk of developing pancreatic cancer:
Smoking cigarettes increases your chances of developing many cancers, including pancreatic cancer.Chronic inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis) over a number of years can increase your risk of cancer.Male. Men are 1.3 times more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than women. Age. The average age at which pancreatic cancer develops is 65. This means, the older you get the higher your risk of developing this cancer is. Diabetes. This medical condition has been linked to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer in later life. Family risk. Having a first-degree family member with pancreatic cancer triples your risk of the disease.
While Swayze had his smoking habit and gender stacked up against him, he didn’t have any of the other risk factors for pancreatic cancer. Like all other cancer sufferers, Swayze must have wondered why he developed this cancer. When it comes to cancer, we just don’t have enough answers
What would be the signs and symptoms?
As previously mentioned, pancreatic cancer most often grows and spreads without detection, in 50 percent of all sufferers the cancer has spread to other organs by the time obvious symptoms develop. The symptoms and signs which pancreatic cancer may cause depend on the size and location of the cancer in the pancreas.
Jaundice. In a small number of people pancreatic cancer can present as yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes and darkening of the urine. Pain. Typically lower back pain which is only relieved by heat or bending forward is a sign of pancreatic cancer. The problem is that there are many other much more common causes of back pain.
Loss of appetite and unexplained weight loss. Cancer puts the body into a ‘breaking down’ state. Someone with cancer not only won’t feel like eating, but will burn more kilojoules as their body focuses its resources on fighting the disease. Someone with cancer can lose up to several kilograms a week.Nausea and vomiting. While it’s not very specific, someone with pancreatic cancer will frequently complain of feeling bilious, especially after eating fatty meals.
What are the chances of survival?
Pancreatic cancer generally has a poor outlook. For those with advanced disease most will not survive one year after diagnosis. For those with early disease which can be operated on, one-in-four will still be alive after five years. Despite his late stage diagnosis and grim initial reports, Swayze survived another 20 months after his diagnosis. Cancer experts would consider this better than anyone can hope for. It makes us all feel like we are living on borrowed time.
What treatment is there?
For about 20 percent of pancreatic cancer patients the tumor is still located in the pancreas and can be removed. The surgery is technically very tricky and highly specialized, taking on average six to eight hours. Surgery offers the best chance of survival for any sufferer.
Chemotherapy also forms a vital part of the treatment. For those with late disease, chemotherapy can slow down the rate of spread of the cancer and give the person a few more months of life. In those with early disease, surgery is first done followed by chemotherapy to kill off cancer cells which may have microscopically spread around the body.
Chemotherapy is sadly, not a perfect science. While pharmaceutical companies pour billions of dollars into researching new cancer-fighting chemicals, there is no such thing as ‘a cure for cancer’. Not everyone or every tumor responds the same way to a chemotherapy drug.
Treatment, as with Patrick Swayze, may even be experimental. The drugs are often toxic and may have horrible side-effects. But they may also work. Unless people are brave enough to try these treatments, we will never really progress in finding the treatments which work best.
Those who blame chemotherapy for Swayze’s death have lost sight of the fact that cancer kills people, and that chemotherapy has saved many lives. There is no treatment – alternative or mainstream – which can guarantee success. But every person who has chemotherapy provides us with an answer that slowly navigates us towards success.
