Car crashes only take a moment to transpire but can have a life-altering impact on the people involved. The worst collisions in Texas claim people’s lives and leave others grieving an unexpected death. Hundreds of families each year in Texas experience profound grief when a loved one doesn’t make it home from work or school. In some of those situations, it is evident that another party caused the fatal crash. Sometimes, those who have recently lost a loved one in a Texas wreck decide that the best means of pursuing justice for that loss involves filing a lawsuit.
Texas has a wrongful death statute that allows those affected by someone’s untimely, preventable death to seek compensation from the party responsible for the tragedy. Why are wrongful death lawsuits frequently the response that people have to a fatal collision?
Insurance doesn’t do enough to cover the costs
The unfortunate truth about car crashes is that they often cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or more when people look at the lifetime financial impact of the wreck. Fatal collisions will deprive family members not just of the money it costs to provide someone’s medical care in their last moments and the cost of their funeral but also a lifetime of their contributions to the household.
Although there are legal requirements for every driver in Texas to carry insurance, what the state requires falls far short of the true financial impact of someone dying suddenly. Motorists in Texas can have as little as $30,000 in bodily injury liability coverage if one person dies or $60,000 of coverage for cases where multiple people get hurt and die.
Oftentimes, insurance may not be sufficient to even cover the costs of end-of-life care and funeral expenses, let alone the cost of years of wages and other contributions to the household. Many families who would never consider themselves litigious will end up pursuing wrongful death lawsuits specifically because insurance leaves them with massive financial losses.
A wrongful death lawsuit won’t be subject to the same limitations as an insurance claim, which means it can more thoroughly compensate people trying to recover the lost wages someone would have earned. The law permitting wrongful death lawsuits exists specifically to protect families from unfair financial hardship caused by the negligence or bad behavior of others.
Learning more about Texas wrongful death lawsuits may help those shocked by a sudden tragedy assess how to navigate the legal side of their circumstances. Seeking legal guidance is a good way to obtain this clarity.