Virginia Beach Survival Action Lawyer

If your loved one died before they could bring a claim for a personal injury, you still have options. In Virginia Beach, there is a claim called a survival action meant to help families in your situation. With this type of claim, a personal representative can bring the original personal injury suit on your loved one’s behalf.

A Virginia Beach survival action lawyer from Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers can help. Throughout the process, our compassionate wrongful death attorneys can give your family the support you need to give your claim the best chance of success.

What is a Survival Action?

Under Virginia law, a survival action is when the person died, but not from the injuries they suffered in the initial accident. An example would be someone who breaks their ribs in a car crash, which requires surgery. If they die in the surgery as the result of the injury, it would be a wrongful death case. However, if they survived the surgery and had a heart attack unrelated to the injury a few months later, the matter becomes a survival action that would allow a representative to bring the original injury case in the decedent’s place.

The main difference between wrongful death and survival actions from an economic standpoint or a standpoint of the damages is the question of who is eligible to receive compensation. In a survival action, the money goes to the estate and is divided up however the will, if there is one, says it should be divided. If there is no will, the money will be divided according to the law of intestacy, which is the law that says what happens to the person’s property if they die and do not have a will. On the other hand, in a wrongful death case, the people who get the money are specified in a statute that outlines an order of preference.

The last major distinction between the two is that survival actions consider the pain and suffering from the person who was injured, whereas a wrongful death case looks at the pain and suffering and emotional damages to the survivors who are left behind. A Virginia Beach survival action attorney can further outline the differences between the two types of cases.

Damages Available to Virginia Beach Families

Unlike a wrongful death case, survival actions do not have to go back to the Virginia Beach circuit court for approval. Instead, they could be settled among the parties with the insurance company outside of court.

The different types of damages that are normally involved in a survival action case in Virginia Beach include:

• Medical bills
• Lost wages
• Pain and suffering

Investigating a survival action is much like investigating a personal injury action in which the injured party is still alive. This can include getting lost wage forms and information about their economic losses from work and talking to family members about what the person went through before they passed away to understand their pain and suffering.

Speak with a Virginia Beach Survival Action Attorney

An attorney from Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers can help your family throughout this difficult process. In a survival action case, the role of the attorney is to provide advice and deal with all the economic and legal issues, so that the family could focus on grieving. A compassionate Virginia Beach survival action lawyer’s role is to make that grieving process easier by taking some of the burdens off of the family. To learn more about how we can help, call today for a free consultation.