Wrongful Death

A Michigan wrongful death claim is governed by MCL 600.2922, the state’s Wrongful Death Act, which permits an action when a person’s death is caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of another, under circumstances that would have entitled the deceased to bring a personal injury action had death not resulted. The claim must be brought by the personal representative of the deceased’s estate, and Abood Law Firm routinely guides a grieving family through the probate process of appointing a personal representative in parallel with building the underlying case, treating that guidance as part of the firm’s representation rather than a separate errand the family must handle alone.

The statute identifies specific classes of damages recoverable on behalf of the estate and the deceased’s survivors, including reasonable medical, hospital, and funeral expenses, and the loss of financial support the deceased would have provided. Compensation for the pain and suffering the deceased endured between injury and death is technically an element of a survival action under MCL 600.2921, brought alongside the wrongful death claim rather than as part of it, and the distinction affects how that element of damages is pleaded and proven. Where the death follows alleged medical negligence, Michigan also requires an affidavit of merit and a notice of intent to sue under MCL 600.2912b before the claim can be filed, a separate procedural track from the Wrongful Death Act’s own requirements. Beyond these threshold requirements, MCL 600.2922(6) directs the court to apportion damages among a spouse, children, descendants, and parents according to the injury each has actually sustained, a determination that demands a thorough accounting of the family’s circumstances rather than a uniform distribution.

Valuing a family’s non-economic loss has always been one of the more difficult tasks Michigan law asks of its courts, since no dollar figure can meaningfully substitute for a parent, spouse, or child. The Wrongful Death Act nonetheless recognizes damages for the loss of society and companionship, encompassing the guidance, protection, and affection a survivor has been permanently deprived of. Building a complete portrait of the relationship destroyed by the death means gathering testimony from family members, evidence of the deceased’s role within the household, and, where applicable, the deceased’s own projected life expectancy and earning trajectory.

Michigan law also permits recovery of exemplary damages in circumstances involving particularly egregious conduct, and we evaluate that possibility at the outset of every case. Because wrongful death claims frequently arise from an underlying tort, be it a negligence claim following a fatal collision, a medical malpractice claim following substandard care, or a products liability claim following a defective product, our approach requires mastering the elements of that underlying claim with the same rigor applied to any case where the client survived.

Few procedural traps carry higher stakes than the wrongful death statute of limitations. The underlying claim would ordinarily be governed by the three-year period under MCL 600.5805, but the Wrongful Death Act’s saving provision, MCL 600.5852, gives the personal representative two years from the date of appointment to file, or whatever time remains on the underlying claim’s own limitations period, whichever is later. That extension is not unlimited: MCL 600.5852 also sets an outer boundary of three years past the original limitations deadline, so a claim cannot be revived indefinitely just because a personal representative was appointed late. We calculate these overlapping deadlines immediately upon retention, since the interplay between the appointment of a personal representative and the underlying claim’s limitations period is a frequent source of confusion that can jeopardize an otherwise meritorious case.

The long-term implications of a wrongful death matter extend across generations. A family that has lost its primary wage earner faces a permanently altered financial trajectory, while children who have lost a parent carry the loss through every subsequent milestone of their lives. Protecting these families has always required counsel willing to engage in the grind of full economic and non-economic damages analysis, working with financial and vocational experts to project what the family has truly lost, rather than accepting an insurer’s initial valuation of a life. Abood Law Firm brings that same discipline to every wrongful death matter it accepts, recognizing that the firm’s advocacy is often the only accountability a family will ever see.