Spokane Wrongful Death Attorney by Your Side
Compassionate Legal Help After a Loved One’s Passing – Free Consultation
The sudden loss of a loved one due to someone else’s negligence or recklessness creates an unimaginable tragedy for families. While no legal action can bring back your loved one or fully heal the pain of loss, pursuing a wrongful death claim can provide crucial financial security for surviving family members and ensure that those responsible are held accountable for their actions.
A wrongful death occurs when a person dies as a result of another party’s negligent, reckless, or intentional conduct. These cases can arise from various circumstances including car accidents, medical malpractice, workplace accidents, defective products, criminal acts, and premises liability incidents. The common element is that the death was preventable and resulted from someone else’s failure to exercise reasonable care or follow safety standards.
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim?
Wrongful death laws vary by state but generally allow certain family members and beneficiaries to pursue claims for the loss of their loved one. Immediate family members including surviving spouses, children, and parents typically have the strongest rights to file wrongful death claims. In some jurisdictions, other family members such as siblings, grandparents, or domestic partners may also have standing to file claims.
When multiple family members have potential claims, courts often appoint a personal representative or executor to file the lawsuit on behalf of all beneficiaries. This person, frequently the surviving spouse or adult child, represents the interests of the entire family and ensures that any recovery is distributed appropriately among eligible beneficiaries.
Types of Damages in Wrongful Death Cases
Economic Damages
- Funeral and burial expenses
- Medical bills from final treatment
- Lost wages and future earnings
- Lost benefits and retirement contributions
- Household services the deceased provided
Non-Economic Damages
- Loss of companionship, guidance, and support
- Pain and suffering of surviving family members
- Loss of parental guidance for children
- Emotional distress and mental anguish
Calculating Economic Losses
Economic damages in wrongful death cases require careful analysis by economic experts. Lost future earnings calculations consider the deceased’s age, education, work history, career trajectory, and life expectancy, less what the deceased would have spent. For young victims with decades of potential earnings ahead, these calculations can result in substantial awards measured in millions of dollars.
Beyond direct income, economic losses include the value of benefits such as health insurance, retirement contributions, and other workplace benefits the deceased would have earned. For stay-at-home parents or caregivers, economic experts calculate the replacement cost of household services including childcare, home maintenance, transportation, and family management services.
Non-Economic Losses
The intangible losses in wrongful death cases often represent the largest component of recovery. Those damages acknowledge that family members have lost far more than financial support. Loss of companionship damages recognize the emotional support, love, guidance, and relationship that surviving family members will never again experience with their loved one.
For children who lose parents, loss of guidance and nurturing damages address the invaluable role parents play in emotional development, education support, and life guidance. Spouses who lose partners face not only the loss of emotional support but often dramatic changes in their life plans, social connections, and daily routines.
Common Causes of Wrongful Death
Motor Vehicle Wrongful Deaths
Traffic accidents remain one of the leading causes of wrongful death, particularly involving drunk drivers, distracted drivers, and commercial vehicle operators. Families affected by these tragedies often turn to an experienced Spokane drunk driving accident attorney to help navigate complex claims, multiple insurance policies, and identify all responsible parties to ensure maximum compensation.
Trucking accidents frequently result in fatalities due to the massive size and weight of commercial vehicles. These cases may involve the truck driver, trucking company, cargo loaders, maintenance providers, and vehicle manufacturers, requiring thorough investigation by an experienced truck accident lawyer to determine all liable parties and applicable insurance coverage.
Medical Malpractice Wrongful Death
Medical malpractice wrongful death cases arise when healthcare providers fail to meet accepted standards of care, resulting in preventable patient deaths. These cases can involve misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis of serious conditions, surgical errors, medication mistakes, anaesthesia complications, birth injuries, and failure to recognize or respond to medical emergencies that may leave families in need of a brain injury lawyer.
Hospital negligence may also contribute to wrongful deaths through inadequate staffing, poor communication between medical teams, equipment failures, or systemic safety problems. Nursing home neglect or abuse can result in wrongful death claims when facilities fail to provide appropriate care for elderly or vulnerable residents.
Medical malpractice wrongful death cases require extensive medical expert testimony to establish that the healthcare provider’s actions fell below accepted standards of care and directly caused the patient’s death. Our attorney and team work with leading medical experts in relevant specialties who can review medical records, identify deviations from proper care, and explain complex medical concepts to juries.
These cases often involve detailed analysis of medical records, hospital policies, staffing levels, and equipment maintenance records. We may also investigate whether the healthcare provider had a history of similar problems or disciplinary actions that should have prevented the fatal error.
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Special Considerations for Different Types of Losses
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Loss of a Spouse
When a spouse dies due to wrongful death, the surviving partner faces not only emotional devastation but often dramatic financial changes. Beyond lost income, surviving spouses lose retirement benefits, health insurance coverage, household services, and the emotional support that marriage provides. These cases require careful economic analysis to project the full financial impact over the survivor’s remaining lifetime.
Surviving spouses may also face increased childcare costs, the need to return to work after years of absence, or the inability to maintain their current lifestyle. The emotional support and companionship provided by marriage has recognized economic value that forms part of wrongful death damages.
Loss of a Parent
Children who lose parents suffer both immediate and long-term consequences that must be addressed in wrongful death claims. Beyond lost financial support, children lose the guidance, nurturing, and emotional support that parents provide throughout their development into adulthood.
The loss of a parent affects educational opportunities, extracurricular activities, college planning, and countless other aspects of a child’s development. Economic experts calculate not only lost financial support but also the cost of replacing parental services such as transportation, homework help, emotional guidance, and life skill development.
Loss of a Child
The wrongful death of a child creates unique legal and emotional challenges. While children typically haven’t established earning records, they represent decades of future potential that has been stolen from both the child and their parents. These cases focus heavily on the emotional bonds between parents and children and the devastating impact of this unnatural loss.
Parents who lose children often require extensive counseling and may be unable to work for extended periods due to their grief. Some parents never fully return to their previous earning capacity. The loss of the parent-child relationship, including the joy, companionship, and future experiences that will never occur, forms the basis for substantial non-economic damages.
Your Family’s Path to Justice
No family should have to endure the loss of a loved one due to someone else’s negligence or reckless behavior. While the legal system cannot restore your loved one or eliminate your pain, it can provide justice, accountability, and the financial resources your family needs to move forward.
At Fannin Litigation Group, we consider it both an honor and a responsibility to represent families during their darkest hours. We approach every wrongful death case with the gravity and respect it deserves, understanding that we’re not just handling a legal matter but helping a family seek justice for someone they loved deeply.
Time is critical in wrongful death cases. Evidence must be preserved, witnesses must be interviewed while their memories are fresh, and legal deadlines must be met. The sooner you contact our firm, the better we can protect your family’s rights and build the strongest possible case for justice and compensation.
Don’t let those responsible for your loved one’s death escape accountability. Contact Fannin Litigation Group today to learn how we can help your family seek justice, secure your financial future, and honor your loved one’s memory through meaningful legal action.
Your family deserves experienced, compassionate representation during this difficult time. Call (509) 328-8204 for compassionate legal help.
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ATTORNEY PATRICK K. FANNIN
Patrick K. Fannin brings a unique combination of legal excellence, practical business experience, and genuine community connection to every case he handles. As the owner of Fannin Litigation Group, he has built a reputation for aggressive advocacy and superior results in complex personal injury matters throughout Washington State and beyond. [ATTORNEY BIO]
If you are hurt, call Patrick immediately. Not only is he an amazing human being, he is an incredible attorney. Patient, tenacious, dedicated, compassionate, knowledgeable and wise… I could go on and on. Pat has helped me win several cases. The most memorable has to be a personal injury case against a major computer retailer. Pat has a way of making you feel like everything is going to be okay, and it will be. He brings peace of mind instantly, and you can feel his honesty and care right away. He is genuine, through and through. And he’s also a fighter, with his biggest weapon being his knowledge of the law and his creative use of it. He will uncover all of the rocks and help you carry them. If you are still considering other attorneys, forget about it. Call Pat. / Brandon Hunter
Our private , small neighborhood was under attack by a malicious and unwarranted lawsuit. We hired Pat Fannin to represent all of us and to settle this case without loosing any of our rights. Mr. Fannin did an outstanding job prioritizing our needs and getting us exactly what we needed. He is extremely personal, prompt and knowledgeable. We can now rest easy in our fabulous neighborhood. Hopefully we will not need his services again, but if we do, we would be honored to hire him again. / Patricia Graham
Pat is the best! Knowledgeable, caring, honest and goes above and beyond to help his clients. At the time I came in, I was like a zombie who thought her life was over due to a car accident. I reached out to other attorneys until my friend recommended Pat. Other attorneys didn't even meet me, they had some assistant fill out a basic form. Pat sat down with me, had compassion for my injury, and walked me through every step. It was his knowledge and guidance that sent me down the path of recovery where I am once again a functional adult with no debt from my accident. Highly recommend!!! / Ted Smith
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