What if there are minors who are surviving heirs?

Stephen D. Phillips: He explains that an administrator of the estate runs the lawsuit for the heirs, that the court typically appoints the surviving spouse, and that minors have claims for lost support and loss of society.

Attorney Stephen D. Phillips · Wrongful Death · 1-minute 21-second answer

Transcript

Automatically transcribed from the video’s audio and lightly edited.

If there are minors that are the surviving heirs, what we do is we will appoint a administrator of the estate of the deceased person. It is the administrator of the estate who will run the litigation on behalf of the heirs. If there are minors, what the court typically does is it will appoint the surviving spouse. If there is no surviving spouse, typically they will appoint a brother or sister of the deceased person to represent the interests of the minors. The minors have a claim for not only loss of benefits they would have received from their parents, which is money, goods, and services, but they also get the benefit of what’s called loss of society, which is the relationship, the unique bond between family members. Society is a very broad term. It encompasses advice, guidance, protection, comfort, and care, and all of those things which make us human and unique as far as human relationships. Those are all compensable elements of damage.

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