A new case from the Washington Supreme Court has enhanced damages available in Washington wrongful death claims.  Elderly parents who are dependant on their adult children for certain services may now recover funds for those services that the child will no longer perform. 

The court ruled that services that adult children perform for their dependant parents; like driving them to appointments, help reading, glucose monitoring, injections, may be calculated as part of compensation owed in a wrongful death claim.  When a child is gone a parent will likely have to pay someone to do what the child once did for free or live a less full life without the services.  The parent clearly suffers a monetary loss when this happens.

In the past parents who filed a wrongful death lawsuit following the death of a child could only recover the monetary benefits the child provided to the parent, which were actual cash the child paid to the parent or on behalf of the parent.  There was a catch 22 in the calculation of damages.  If the child paid someone else to drive the parent around or take care of the parent, that could be included, but if the child did those things herself then they were not included.  But now the court has fixed that catch 22, a value may be assigned to the lost services the child previously provided and the cost of getting those same services in the future may be awarded in a Washington wrongful death lawsuit.

As Kirkland wrongful death attorneys we applaud the court for fixing this loop hole in the law.  Dependant parents should be awarded money for the lost services of their kids if justified in a wrongful death case.