What is the difference between a personal injury claim and a wrongful death claim?

Stephen D. Phillips: He explains that a personal injury claim belongs to a living person, a wrongful death claim arises when the person dies, and a survival claim keeps the injury case alive after death.

Attorney Stephen D. Phillips · Wrongful Death · 1-minute 31-second answer

Transcript

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

The difference between a personal injury claim and a wrongful death claim is pretty simple. The personal injury claim is brought on behalf of a person who is still living. That is a person who has been injured wrongfully as a result of the wrongful conduct of another person, a corporation, an organization, or a defective product. If that person then dies as a result of the injuries, the claim also becomes a wrongful death claim. So within the context of one lawsuit, there often is a personal injury claim and a death claim. If the person dies after the personal injury claim is filed, that personal injury claim is translated into what is called a survival claim. And a survival claim is just that the personal injury case survives the death of the person. If a person is wrongfully injured and they die, for example, a year later, the defendant has to pay for the personal injuries they caused to that person for that one year before they died, as well as pay the wrongful death damages to the heirs as a result of the death of the person that was wrongfully caused.

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