Wrongful death lawsuits

[ATN082268]

I've heard of wrongful death lawsuits but have no personal experience with them and wondered how they worked with legitimate self defense or home defense scenarios involving a gun. How often are they used, how successful are they, etc.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by ATN082268

I've heard of wrongful death lawsuits but have no personal experience with them and wondered how they worked with legitimate self defense or home defense scenarios involving a gun. How often are they used, how successful are they, etc.

This is an enormous subject. So instead of writing a law review here, I'll refer you to this article which generally covers the ground. Basically, as defined in the article, "wrongful death" is:

The taking of the life of an individual resulting from the willful or negligent act of another person or persons.

So just as you may be held civilly liable to pay compensation to someone your tortious (negligent of intentional wrongful act) act injures, you may be held civilly liable to pay compensation to certain surviving relatives of someone your tortious act kills.

And just as is the case with criminal liability, justification is a defense to being held civilly liable for damages arising from your intentional act of violence against another human. So --

• Since your threat or use of force in self defense involves your threatening to intentionally hurt or kill another person, or your intentional use of violence to actually hurt or kill another person, it will always be possible for you to sued for civil damages by the person against whom you threatened or used force, or his survivors.
  
  
• And like you can avoid going to jail for your threat or use of force against another if you can establish that your act of violence was legally justified, you can similarly also avoid civil damages. However, while the burden of proof on the state to throw you in jail is "beyond a reasonable doubt", the burden of proof for a civil plaintiff trying to get money from you is only "a preponderance of the evidence."
  
  
• A number of States have immunity laws which help protect someone from liability for his justified use of force. However, a threshold condition for immunity is that the persons acts of violence are justified. So if there is a disagreement as to whether someone was legally justified to have threatened to hurt or kill another person, or to actually have hurt or killed another, he could still wind up in court to resolve that question.
  
  
• The subjects of civil liability and civil immunity have been discussed more extensively in this thread.

I don't know that there are any reliable, comprehensive statistics on how often a defensive use of force results in a civil suit, nor how often such suit results in a payment of money to the plaintiff.

[Spats McGee]

As Frank points out, that's a very big question. It's also a question of state law, so the answer will vary, depending on the jurisdiction in which a case is brought. Because it's a matter of state law, there are also questions of Stand Your Ground and Castle Doctrine laws. Accordingly, I'm going to refer you to this thread, in addition to the ones Frank has already linked.

[ATN082268]

I appreciate the responses. Thank you.