A 2026 guide to wrongful death economic and non-economic damages, state statutes, present-value formulas, survivor claims, estate claims, and settlement worksheets.
This site is operated by Mustafa Bilgic, an individual based in Adiyaman, Turkiye. The operator is NOT a licensed attorney, NOT a law firm, and does NOT provide legal advice. This page is an informational legal research reference compiled from public statutes, agency guidance, and legal-education sources. Always verify current law with the official state publisher and consult a licensed attorney in the relevant state.
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This page does not publish fake verdicts, invented claim averages, or testimonials. Dollar examples are labeled as hypothetical worksheets. Public sources are linked in the cited sources section.
Wrongful death law is statutory. The categories of damages, eligible beneficiaries, deadline, and distribution rules come from state law. Economic damages usually compensate measurable financial loss such as lost support, lost services, funeral expenses, medical expenses, and net accumulations. Non-economic damages compensate human losses such as companionship, protection, society, guidance, mental pain, grief, and loss of relationship, but not every state allows every category.
A survival action is different. It belongs to the decedent's estate for claims the decedent could have brought if death had not occurred, such as conscious pain and suffering before death, medical bills, or lost wages between injury and death. Some states combine practical settlement discussions, but the legal ownership and distribution can differ. That distinction affects liens, probate, creditors, and releases.
New York has historically limited wrongful death recovery to pecuniary injury under EPTL 5-4.3, while Florida expressly lists survivor mental pain, loss of companionship, support, services, and estate damages in section 768.21. Texas Chapter 71 allows damages proportionate to the injury resulting from death and permits exemplary damages in specified circumstances. The same fatal incident can therefore value differently by state.
The economic formula starts with expected earnings and services. Lost financial support equals projected earnings minus personal consumption, taxes where applicable, and amounts not available for family support, discounted to present value. Lost household services equal replacement value of services such as childcare, transportation, maintenance, caregiving, and financial management, also discounted to present value. Funeral and medical expenses are added if recoverable by the estate or survivor who paid them.
The non-economic formula is jurisdiction-specific. In states that allow survivor grief, companionship, society, protection, or guidance, the evidence usually comes from family testimony, photographs, life history, caregiving facts, dependency, household roles, and the quality of the relationship. In states that restrict non-economic wrongful death recovery, the same evidence may be relevant only indirectly or not at all.
Hypothetical only: a 45-year-old parent earned $80,000 per year, had expected work life of 20 years, and contributed $45,000 annually to household support after personal consumption. A present-value expert might calculate support at a discounted figure rather than simply multiplying $45,000 by 20. If household services are valued at $18,000 per year and future services run 15 years, that is a separate economic component. Non-economic damages are then analyzed under the state wrongful death statute and any caps.
Wrongful death settlements often require probate coordination or court approval, especially when minors, estates, competing beneficiaries, or medical liens are involved. The settlement agreement should identify which portion resolves wrongful death claims, survival claims, medical expenses, punitive damages, interest, and any taxable components. Allocation can affect creditors, liens, taxes, and distribution.
Caps can enter through medical malpractice statutes, government tort claims acts, or general non-economic damages statutes. A death caused by a private truck crash may have no non-economic cap in a state, while a death caused by a public hospital may face a government cap and a med-mal cap. The defendant identity matters as much as the death itself.
These selected statutes illustrate who can recover and which damages categories require state-specific review.
| State | Authority | Economic / non-economic notes |
|---|---|---|
| California | Cal. Code Civ. Proc. sections 377.60 and 377.61 | Heirs may recover financial support and loss of love, companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, society, and moral support. |
| Texas | Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Chapter 71 | Spouse, children, and parents are statutory beneficiaries; exemplary damages may be available for willful act or gross negligence. |
| Florida | Fla. Stat. section 768.21 | Detailed survivor and estate categories, including support/services, companionship, mental pain, medical/funeral expenses, and net accumulations. |
| New York | EPTL section 5-4.3 | Damages focus on fair and just compensation for pecuniary injuries; verify current legislation and case law. |
| Pennsylvania | 42 Pa.C.S. sections 8301 and 8302 | Wrongful death and survival actions are distinct; recoverable categories and distribution differ. |
| Illinois | 740 ILCS 180 | Wrongful Death Act allows pecuniary injuries including grief, sorrow, and mental suffering of next of kin. |
| Ohio | Ohio Rev. Code section 2125.02 | Statute lists loss of support, services, society, prospective inheritance, mental anguish, and funeral expenses. |
| Georgia | O.C.G.A. sections 51-4-2 and 51-4-5 | Full value of life from decedent's perspective is distinctive; estate may hold related claims. |
| North Carolina | N.C. Gen. Stat. section 28A-18-2 | Damages include medical/funeral expenses, net income, services, society, companionship, comfort, guidance, and advice. |
| New Jersey | N.J.S.A. 2A:31-1 to 2A:31-6 | Wrongful death is primarily pecuniary; survival action may carry decedent's pain and suffering. |
| Michigan | MCL section 600.2922 | Allows damages including loss of financial support and loss of society and companionship. |
| Washington | RCW 4.20.010 and related sections | Beneficiary class and non-economic recovery depend on relationship and dependency rules. |
| Massachusetts | Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, section 2 | Wrongful death damages include fair monetary value of decedent to beneficiaries and punitive-like minimums in some cases. |
| Arizona | A.R.S. sections 12-611 to 12-613 | Jury may award damages it deems fair and just to statutory beneficiaries, subject to evidence. |
| Tennessee | Tenn. Code sections 20-5-106 and 20-5-113 | Wrongful death claim preserves decedent's action plus statutory beneficiary distribution rules. |
This page is designed for issue spotting. It helps a claimant, adjuster, researcher, or content reviewer ask better questions about wrongful death damages, but it does not replace jurisdiction-specific advice. The same facts can move in different directions because one state treats a deadline as a hard statute of repose, another state tolls for discovery, and another state applies a cap only after the jury verdict. A clean worksheet keeps those steps separate instead of blending them into one rough settlement number.
The safest workflow is to write the gross damages first, then apply liability probability, then apply state law limits, then apply collection constraints. If the defendant has no collectible insurance, a large theoretical verdict may not produce a large settlement. If a hospital, Medicare, Medicaid, ERISA plan, workers compensation carrier, or state victim compensation fund asserts reimbursement, the gross settlement can also be very different from the client net.
For wrongful death damages, the practical question is not simply what a statute says. It is what proof would be admissible, how a court would instruct the jury, whether a cap or offset applies after verdict, and whether the policy language changes the result. That is why each table below is a quick-reference starting point, not a final opinion letter.
High-value legal research starts with records, not adjectives. Medical chronology, imaging, operative reports, diagnostic codes, photographs, incident reports, wage records, tax returns, benefit ledgers, policy declarations, lien notices, and expert opinions are the records that move a settlement worksheet. A severe injury with missing causation proof can value lower than a moderate injury with clean liability and excellent records.
The most common error is treating medical bills as the same thing as medical damages. In many states the recoverable medical expense evidence may be limited by amounts paid, amounts incurred, collateral-source statutes, letters of protection, or post-verdict reductions. The second common error is ignoring comparative fault. A case with $300,000 in damages and 40 percent plaintiff fault does not net the same as a case with the same damages and no plaintiff fault.
The third common error is confusing a deadline with a negotiation target. A statute of limitations is a filing deadline. It does not tell you what the claim is worth, but missing it usually destroys bargaining power. A notice deadline against a public entity can be even shorter than the lawsuit deadline.
A disciplined worksheet uses this sequence: (1) past medical expenses supported by records, (2) future medical expenses supported by treating physician or expert opinion, (3) past wage loss, (4) future earning capacity loss, (5) non-economic damages by multiplier, per diem, or comparable-case reasoning, (6) state-law caps and comparative fault, (7) insurance limits and collectability, (8) liens, subrogation, fees, costs, and tax treatment.
For non-economic damages, two common methods are the multiplier method and the per diem method. A multiplier worksheet starts with economic medical damages and applies a factor that rises with severity, duration, permanency, scarring, surgery, impairment, or credible daily-life impact. A per diem worksheet assigns a daily value to pain, disability, or loss of normal life and multiplies that rate by the expected duration. Neither method is binding on a jury, but both are common negotiation frameworks discussed by consumer legal sources such as NOLO and AllLaw.
A practical settlement range can be written as: expected settlement value equals gross trial value multiplied by liability probability, multiplied by collectability, minus expected lien and transaction friction. If a state cap applies, substitute the cap-adjusted trial value before applying settlement probability. If policy limits are lower than the adjusted trial value, the policy limit becomes a ceiling unless additional defendants, umbrella coverage, bad-faith exposure, or personal collectability exist.
Collect the accident date, injury date, date of discovery, date of death if applicable, defendant identity, insurance declarations, hospital itemized bills, health-plan payment ledgers, photographs, inspection logs, police reports, animal-control reports, alcohol-service evidence, expert reports, and all lien letters. If a government defendant, public hospital, school district, transit authority, or federal agency is involved, collect claim-presentation forms immediately because notice periods can be much shorter than ordinary lawsuit periods.
For tax and lien questions, keep the settlement agreement, complaint, demand letter, allocation schedule, closing statement, attorney fee contract, Form 1099, lien compromise letters, and proof of any prior medical-expense deduction. Those records matter because federal tax treatment often turns on what the payment was for, and lien reductions often turn on what charges were related, reasonable, and recoverable.
Economists usually need age, health, education, work history, earnings records, fringe benefits, taxes, consumption assumptions, retirement plans, household services, dependents, and work-life expectancy. A spreadsheet that ignores discount rate and personal consumption is not a full wrongful-death economic analysis.
Non-economic proof should not be generic. The strongest presentation shows what was actually lost: daily routines, caregiving, guidance, family roles, shared plans, mentoring, transportation, language assistance, household repair, emotional support, and protection. The testimony should fit the state statute rather than use categories the state does not recognize.
The answer is state-specific. It may be a personal representative, spouse, children, parents, dependents, or statutory heirs depending on the state.
Wrongful death compensates survivors or statutory beneficiaries for losses from death. Survival claims belong to the estate for claims the decedent had before death.
Usually yes if state law allows them and the proper party claims them.
No. Some states allow mental pain, grief, or loss of society; others restrict wrongful death to pecuniary loss.
Amounts for physical injury or sickness death claims are generally analyzed under IRC section 104, but punitive damages and interest can be taxable.
Sometimes. Caps depend on state law, defendant type, and whether the death claim is medical malpractice, government liability, or another category.
No. SettlementCalculator.xyz is operated by Mustafa Bilgic, a non-attorney individual operator. The page is educational research only and is not legal, tax, or financial advice.
No. Statutes, court rules, administrative forms, and appellate interpretations change. Verify the current text with the official state publisher and consult a licensed attorney in the relevant state.
Venue, comparative fault, damages caps, insurance limits, local jury behavior, lien rules, evidentiary rules, and filing deadlines can all change the net settlement value.
No. Formulas are only screening tools. The final number depends on proof, liability risk, collectability, coverage, medical support, venue, and negotiation timing.
No. Any dollar examples are hypothetical math examples, not real verdicts, testimonials, or predictions.
Contact a licensed attorney promptly if a deadline may be near, fault is disputed, injuries are serious, liens are asserted, government entities are involved, or a release has been offered.