Video Website powered by Einstein IndustriesFredd J. Haas Law Offices, P.C.

FREDD HAAS: A wrongful death case involves a situation wherein someone was killed as a result of the neglect of another person. You can have a wrongful death case in an automobile accident. You can have a wrongful death case that comes out of construction work, for example. You can have wrongful death cases involving a drunk driver.

In all of those cases someone has died and now there's an immediate impact on the family. That involves working with the family and figuring out what each individual family member's loss is. Each state has specific laws on who can recover as a result of the death of someone.

Once we figure out what each individual person's loss is, then we focus on the specific elements of loss, for example income. We would go ahead and get the information that would establish their work record. We would go ahead and get information concerning their relationships with family members. Were they the type of person that provided guidance to family members? What kind of guidance was that?

In most of the cases, there's more than just a loss of income. There's the loss of what that person was to the family in terms of a father, a mother, a counselor and so forth. So, we spend a lot of time dealing with the non-economic parts of someone's life because, in my judgment, the value of the case is not on what the deceased person was making, but who they were and how others are now affected.