A wrongful death lawsuit focuses on the losses incurred by the survivors of a deceased victim. In contrast, a survival action in Pennsylvania allows a representative of the deceased victim’s estate to seek damages for harm suffered by the decedent before death. A survival action effectively allows the estate to stand in the shoes of the deceased and collect the damages that the deceased would have been entitled to recover through a personal injury lawsuit had he or she survived. Survival actions and wrongful death lawsuits are often filed simultaneously.
Some of the losses that a deceased person’s estate can recover through a survival action include:
- The decedent’s pain and suffering from the time of the accident until the time of death.
- Loss of wages from the time of injury until the time of death.
- Loss of future wages that the decedent would have likely received had he or she survived.
- Medical bills incurred during the treatment of the decedent’s final injury that the estate paid.