Yes. When you go to trial in front of a jury, and you are representing let’s say three heirs, you will put up a number saying for example, the wife has sorrow and grief and I am requesting X-amount, and son has grief of Y-amount, and daughter has grief and sorrow of Z-amount.
Then, for the damages for pain and suffering you are going to be talking about it from the perspective of the decedent – what kind of pain and suffering he had, and you’re going to ask for a certain amount there.
That is how it’s going to be recoverable. And the last amount pertaining to the decedent’s pain and suffering would be divided among the heirs.
When you have multiple dependent plaintiffs, like children, does the age of the child affect the amount of the recovery for that individual?
Let’s say you have an 8-year-old and a 17-year-old, one of whom is going to be supported for one year, the other is going to be supported for ten. In that circumstance, yes, that will factor into the division of the damages.
One of the damages you can recover is the loss of support going forward. The 17-year-old is going to lose that support for the one year, whereas the 8-year-old is losing the support for 10 years. There is a different amount associated to each of those individual plaintiffs based off of that type of damage.