How Do Wrongful Death Lawsuits Work In Colorado?
Losing a loved one can be very difficult, especially if you are dealing with financial repercussions as well. Deaths can end up being very expensive, with funeral and medical bills rapidly piling up. On top of that, you might even need to deal with future costs, such as the loss of a source of income. To help lighten some of those burdens, you could consider filing a wrongful death lawsuit.
When filing such a lawsuit, you need to make sure that you familiarize yourself with the laws of your specific state. If you don't, then you might end up making some serious mistakes, which could could you your entire lawsuit. Here are some of the most crucial laws that you will need to deal with when it comes to filing a wrongful death lawsuit in Colorado:
What is a wrongful death?
The first thing that you need to do is establish that you actually have a wrongful death on your hands. There are two main criteria that your situation needs to meet if you want to file a successful lawsuit,
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You need to be able to blame a specific party for the death. You will need to have a single individual or group in mind.
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You then will need to prove that the above individual or group is responsible for the death of your loved one. You will need to create a compelling narrative that is supported by the evidence. If you can't do that, then your chances of winning will be very slim.
How much money can you get as a result of a successful wrongful death lawsuit?
Like many other states, Colorado placed a cap ($250,000) on the amount of money that you can recover under statute 13-21-203. However, this cap was later raised to account for inflation, so the number now stands at $341,250.
As is the case in most cases, the cap applies to non-economic damages, but not economic damages. This means that the cap isn't nearly as prohibitive as it might first appear.
For reference, economic damages covers just about everything that you can clearly quantify. Your bills and lost wages are associated with specific amounts of cash, which means that you can sue for an objective amount in court. Since these values are not capped, you can always ask for as much as you are owed.
On the other hand, non-economic damages covers all of the suffering that can't be translated into a dollar amount easily. If you feel that your economic damages are insufficient, then you can ask for a much larger amount of non-economic damages to offset the perceived discrepancy.
For more information, contact a practice like the Law Offices of Stein & Rosenberg.
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