There is no version of this page that is worth reading while you are making funeral arrangements, and we know that. What follows is here for when you are ready, or for the family member who has taken on the practical side of things.
The one thing worth knowing now: Maryland treats a death caused by negligence as two separate legal claims, and families routinely pursue only one of them because nobody explained that the other exists.
The wrongful death claim and the survival action
They are brought by different people, for different losses, and are often filed together.
- The wrongful death claim belongs to the family. It compensates their loss: the companionship, guidance, care and financial support the person would have provided.
- The survival action belongs to the person who died, and is brought through their estate. It covers what they themselves experienced before death, including conscious pain and suffering, their medical bills and their lost earnings, plus funeral expenses.
The distinction matters financially. A death that followed hours or days of conscious suffering supports a survival claim that a family pursuing only the wrongful death claim would leave entirely unrecovered.
Who is allowed to bring a wrongful death claim
Maryland sorts eligible family members into two groups, and the first group takes priority:
- Primary beneficiaries: the spouse, the parents and the children of the person who died.
- Secondary beneficiaries: other relatives by blood or marriage who were substantially dependent on the person. They can bring a claim where there is no one in the first group.
A wrongful death case is brought for the benefit of all eligible beneficiaries together rather than as competing individual lawsuits, which is one reason these cases need coordinating early. The survival action is separate again: it is brought by the personal representative of the estate, which means someone usually has to open an estate before it can proceed.
The deaths these claims arise from
- Motor vehicle collisions, including crashes caused by another driver and commercial vehicle crashes
- Medical negligence, including a diagnosis that came too late and errors in treatment
- Workplace deaths, where a third party other than the employer contributed
- Unsafe premises, including inadequate security and fatal falls
- Electrocution, fires and explosions, including contact with power lines
- Maritime deaths on the Bay and in the harbor, which follow their own body of law
Where the death happened at work, the family is usually dealing with a workers’ compensation death benefit and a possible civil claim at the same time. Those interact, and the order in which they are handled affects what the family keeps.
What a wrongful death case has to prove
- That someone was negligent, to the same standard as any injury claim.
- That the negligence caused the death. Where the person had existing health problems, this is where the defense concentrates, arguing the death would have happened anyway.
- What the family lost, which is proven with more than a pay stub: the role the person actually played in the household, the care they gave, what they would have earned over a working life.
- What the person experienced before death, for the survival claim, which comes from the medical records and from witnesses.
Maryland’s contributory negligence rule applies here as it does everywhere else in the state, and it is unforgiving: an argument that the person who died was partly responsible can defeat the entire claim. Expect the defense to make it, and expect it to be answered.
What these claims recover
On the wrongful death side, the family’s loss: financial support, the value of services the person provided, and the loss of their care, companionship, guidance and attention. On the survival side, the person’s own medical bills, lost earnings, funeral expenses and conscious pain and suffering before death.
Maryland caps non-economic damages, and the cap is adjusted over time. Wrongful death claims with more than one surviving beneficiary are treated differently from claims with one. Medical malpractice deaths fall under a separate cap again. We will explain how the caps apply to your family’s situation rather than quoting a number that may not be the one that governs your claim.
The deadlines, and why they are not all the same
A Maryland wrongful death claim generally must be filed within three years of the death, with narrow exceptions for particular causes. The survival action follows the rules that would have applied to the person’s own injury claim, which is not always the same date.
Two situations cut the time down sharply. A death involving a government body, such as a county vehicle or a public hospital, can require written notice far sooner than any lawsuit deadline. A death from medical negligence follows the malpractice timing rules instead. If either might apply, ask early rather than late.
What we do, and what we will not do
We investigate while the evidence still exists, which in a fatal crash can mean vehicle data and scene evidence that disappears within weeks. We work with the estate so the survival claim is not lost for want of a personal representative. We coordinate the beneficiaries so the case is brought once, properly.
We will also tell you if we do not think a claim can be proven. Families are approached at their worst moment by people happy to file anything, and a case that collapses two years in costs a family more than the answer they should have been given at the start.
If we take your case, we work on a contingency fee: no fee unless we recover money for you. We advance the case costs and are repaid only from a recovery, so if there is no recovery you owe us nothing. The agreement is in writing before you sign.
