Determining Liability in a New Jersey Truck Accident Wrongful Death Claim

New Jersey truck accidents that result in a wrongful death can have serious effects on an individual’s loved ones. New Jersey attorneys want to make sure anyone who has suffered this due to the negligence of another is rightfully compensated. Truck accident wrongful death attorneys will investigate many things, including the accident, how it happened, and what happened. They will also look into the background of that truck driver, their prior driving history, as well as what the employer for that truck driver was requiring them to do, as far as hours.

Compiling Evidence

The evidence gathered in a wrongful death case is going to depend on the circumstances of each individual accident. There are things that need to be proven after an accident. First is who is liable, or who is at-fault, and the evidence compiled to determine who is at-fault is the police report, photographs of the damage to the vehicles, and photographs of the accident scene. Sometimes it is required to hire an accident reconstruction expert to reconstruct the entire accident to tell attorneys what happened and how it happened.

After they are able to answer that question of who is at-fault, they investigate the medical picture to prove what injuries resulted from this car accident and what damages have been incurred. If it is in a wrongful death setting, they determine how the wrongful death of this individual has affected many people, including all of their loved ones, spouse, children, and parents. They gather the evidence to put together a big picture of how these people’s lives have been drastically impacted by this wrongful death.

Recoverable Damages

Following a truck accident wrongful death in New Jersey, there are two elements of damages. There is a wrongful death action and a survivorship action, which are two different things. The wrongful death action pertains to the loved ones of the person who passed away and how they have been affected as a result of this person’s death, whether that be financial loss or loss of having that companionship, advice, and guidance throughout their life.

The survivorship action includes damages with regard to the person who passed away. Unfortunately, when dealing with a wrongful death, a lot of times there is significant pain and suffering in the last hours or days of that individual’s life. That is an element of damages as well and it goes into a wrongful death claim with regard to the affect the pain and the injury that person went through in the last moments of their life.

Contacting an Attorney

It is essential to contact an attorney to help maintain who is liable in a New Jersey truck accident wrongful death claim, because there are so many facets to the law and so many details involved when working on a wrongful death claim that someone who has not been through it before will not know. It is a very much scaled area of the law that requires someone who has the experience and the resources to make sure that the claim is handled properly.

They will have experience handling a wrongful death case, especially a wrongful case involving a truck accident. A person may not understand the wrongful death laws and the survivorship action laws. Accident attorneys understand these laws and how to move a case forward.