Double damages in Connecticut wrongful death suits?
Why are juries in Connecticut instructed to consider three types of non-economic damages in wrongful death suits? Erika Amarante and Benjamin Cheney of Wiggin and Dana recently explored this topic for The Connecticut Law Tribune.
Under the current wrongful death statute in Connecticut, an estate may recover “just damages together with the cost of reasonably necessary medical, hospital and nursing services, including funeral expenses.” But how are ‘just damages’ defined? We can examine how Connecticut courts have attempted to answer this question through case law.
Chase v. Fitzgerald, 132 Conn. 461, 470 (1976): In this wrongful death case involving a married, unemployed housewife, the court clarified that damages are not limited only to economic loss, but also include the loss of one’s ability to “carry on life’s activities as she would have done had she not been killed.”
Floyd v. Fruit Industries, 144 Conn. 659, 670 (1957): The court determined in this case that ‘just damages’ are not limited to economic damages, stating that “some damages are recoverable for death itself, even though instantaneous, without regard to earnings or earning capacity.”
Kiniry v. Danbury Hospital, 183 Conn. 448, 414 (1981): The court held in this case that in addition to economic damages compensating an estate for lost earnings, medical and funeral expenses, that there are two separate categories of non-economic damages that should be considered – pain and suffering, and the destruction of one’s enjoyment of life.
The civil jury instructions identify a third category of non-economic damages to be considered – compensation for the ‘death itself’. This language appears only in the Floyd ruling, and Amarante and Cheney argue it is duplicitous and should not be included in the Judicial Branch civil jury website instructions.
Amarante and Cheney argue that compensating an estate for ‘death itself’ and for ‘loss of life’s enjoyment’ is an unjust double-dipping of damages and is not supported by case law or the wrongful death statute. When a jury is asked to assign a dollar amount to death and the loss of enjoyment of life requires them to illogically split into two damages categories which are either identical, or at least overlap, yielding duplicate damages.
Relevant reading
Survey of Damage Laws of the 50 States including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico from Arent Fox LLP
Double Dipping in Wrongful-Death Cases Rebuffed by Tim O’Brien for the New Jersey Law Journal
Learning about the other side of damages (economic damages) in wrongful death suits, economic expert Dr. Dwight Steward‘s case summaries.
