The Family Compensation Act, RSBC 1996, c. 126, allows the personal representative of the deceased to make a claim on behalf of a spouse, including a common law spouse (who lived at least two years with the deceased ending no earlier than a year before death), a child, including a stepchild, grandchild and parent of the deceased against someone who negligently or intentionally caused the death.
The law in British Columbia provides compensation for financial loss in wrongful death cases, but not for grief or pain and suffering.
The types of loss that are compensated include:
1. Loss of financial support;
2. Loss of housekeeping services;
3. Loss of guidance;
4. Loss of inheritance;
5. Management fees, and court order interest.
Calculating compensation can be very complex. For example, in calculating the loss of financial support, the court has to estimate how much the deceased would have earned if the defendant had not caused the deceased death. Estimating earnings involves considering the deceased's income before he or she died, the probability that he or she would earn more in the future, and the contingencies of disability, loss of employment, and premature death from some other cause.
If the deceased had lived longer, he or she would have had living expenses that are deducted from earnings in determining the appropriate award for loss of financial support for his or her dependants.
Awards for loss of housekeeping services reflect the court's estimate of the cost of replacing the deceased household services by paid assistance.
The courts generally award up to a maximum of about $30,000 to a young child for loss of guidance, love, companionship and care.
If the deceased would likely have accumulated greater assets if he or she had lived longer, his or her family is entitled to compensation for loss of their expected inheritance. The amount of this claim may be offset to some extent by the fact that they receive an inheritance earlier than if the deceased had lived longer.
Where the court awards a large amount of money, the court may also award a management fee to provide some money to allow the family members to hire a financial manager to preserve the award to provide them with a future income from the award.
By Stanley Rule of the law firm Tinker, Churchill, Rule. You may read his weblog, "Rule of Law" at www.rulelaw.blogspot.com |
