If you have been injured in an automobile accident, you are probably well aware that you may file a claim for the injuries and damages that you sustained as the result of that accident. Unfortunately, you may also be painfully aware of the ways in which your accident has affected the lives of your loved ones. Depending upon your injuries, your relationship with your spouse may have changed, especially in the area of taking care of household responsibilities. In most marriages, responsibilities are divided up early on, and many couples are able to achieve a relatively even balance of supporting their home and family financially as well as physically. An automobile accident can turn all of that upside down, especially if your injuries will require a lengthy recovery time and limit your ability to work, drive, and do some or all of the things that you would normally do.
Fortunately, Mississippi recognizes that the amount of interference that an automobile accident injury can have on a marriage causes the non-injured spouse to suffer. The damage that is caused by this suffering can be addressed by a loss of consortium claim which may be brought by a spouse if they can show that the accident victim’s injuries have interfered with their married and family life. Some of the ways in which spouses report that their lives have been changed by automobile accidents involve child care duties, transportation, meal preparation, earning income, and other practical matters, in addition to emotional factors like the spouse’s pain in seeing the everyday effects of the damage that the accident has done to the person that they love so dearly and the spouse’s inability to communicate or interact with their loved ones, if their injuries have rendered them incapable of doing so.
In the case of fatal accidents that are the result of negligence, the surviving spouse and children of the deceased, or the parents and siblings of the deceased, if the deceased was not married and did not have any children, may be able to bring a claim for wrongful death. There are three parts of a wrongful death claim. The first part of the claim involves proving that the defendant was negligent. To prove negligence, you must prove that the defendant owed some sort of duty to the deceased, the defendant breached the duty, and that the defendant’s breach of their duty to the deceased caused them to be injured or damaged. The second part of a wrongful death claim involve proving that the decedent’s death was caused by the defendant’s negligent action. The third part of a wrongful death claim involves providing evidence of the financial damages that are associated with the loss of the decedent, such as funeral and burial expenses, lost wages, medical bills from care provided after the decedent was injured until the time of their death, the decedent’s pain and suffering, and the pain and suffering of family members in connection with their death.
Giddens Law Firm, P.A.: Serving Clients throughout Mississippi
If you would like to learn more about whether the Mississippi Auto Accident Attorneys at the Giddens Law Firm, P.A. are a good fit for you and your current legal matter please call our office today, at (601) 355-2022.