If you have recently lost a spouse, child, parent, or other close loved one to a wrongful death — such as a death that was the fault of someone else due to the other party's negligence or malice — then you might be unsure of what to do. This might have happened very unexpectedly, and it can be hard to know what you should and should not do in the coming weeks or months. These are some of the top mistakes that you should not make after losing a loved one to a wrongful death.
Not Taking Legal Action
First of all, because of all of the grief that you might be dealing with and because of the stress that you and your family members might be going through right now, one thing that you might not be thinking about is taking legal action. Although you might be incredibly upset about the fact that your loved one lost their life due to the actions of someone else, you might not have even really thought about taking legal action, or you might have assumed that doing so will be unproductive. However, it is usually very important to take legal action in these situations. After all, your family might be entitled to some much-needed financial compensation, and you may want to do what you can to hold the responsible party accountable for their actions.
Not Working With an Attorney
Although it is important to work with an attorney after losing a loved one to a wrongful death, you probably shouldn't try to tackle this type of thing on your own. The laws can be complicated for the average person to understand if they don't have a legal education, and the process of dealing with one of these cases can be quite challenging and time-consuming. A wrongful death attorney can help you with taking action, and they can handle most of the work so that you can focus on mourning and trying to pull your life together after the loss of your loved one. Additionally, they can help you ensure that you are actually successful with your case.
Not Providing Enough Information
You might be really busy handling your loved one's funeral arrangements and other matters. Additionally, while you're mourning, you might not feel up to doing things like you normally would. However, it's still important to gather up any documentation and information that you have, and it's important to stay in contact with your attorney. Even though this might be difficult to do due to the hard time that you are going through, it is important, since it can help your case a lot.