No one welcomes news about the passing of a loved one. Yet the feelings of grief get mixed with anger, if that deceased family member was the victim of a wrongful death. Fortunately, the legal system provides an angry and grieving relative with a means for taking action. It helps to hire the services of a Personal Injury Lawyer in St John’s.

Action to take:

File a lawsuit. In some provinces, families have just one year in which to file a lawsuit. In other states the grieving families have 2 years. Sue the person that was negligent, and caused the wrongful death by demonstrating that negligence.

What is negligence?

Negligence is behavior that could be described as careless and neglectful.

Elements to prove, if family members want to win their lawsuit:

The defendant, the target of the lawsuit had a duty of care towards the person that is now deceased. The defendant did not do a proper job of carrying out that duty of care. The defendant’s breach of responsibility could have taken the form of a negligent act. Alternatively, that breaching of a responsibility might have involved the failure to perform an expected action.

The defendant’s negligence caused the untimely passing of the person that was loved by members of your family. Evidence must support a claim of a direct connection between the defendant’s actions (or lack of action) and the announcement of an untimely death. That evidence normally takes the form of testimony, which has come from an expert in the field of medicine.

The significance of that 3rd element:

A medical expert might get called on, in order to substantiate a claim of a direct connection between the defendant’s actions and the death of the person that was not cared for properly. That requirement works to stifle any claim that might be made by a believer in witchcraft.

Those who believe in witchcraft contend that the thoughts of an evil person can function as an instrument of death. Such beliefs could encourage certain family members to try suing someone that the family did not like and trust. Obviously, such a lawsuit would lack the presence of all 3 of the essential elements.

True, the family could show the defendant’s duty of care. True, it could suggest that some action represented a deviance from the tasks that the defendant was expected to do. Yet in the absence of medical proof, that suggestion would seem baseless.

The family making the accusations could not prove that the defendant’s actions caused the death of the family member that had been so loved by all the men and women that were related to the deceased. The court would highlight the absence of the 3rd element, the proof that the defendant’s actions had caused the untimely death.