Can I file a wrongful death case?

Hello, I’m Roger Ghai. And I practice in the area of injury law. Sometimes I get questions about who has a legal right to file a case in a wrongful death situation on behalf of the deceased person. Let’s say for example that the deceased person was married, then usually that right will fall to the surviving spouse. If there is no surviving spouse, then it could be one on the siblings or other relatives. There’s an entire order of who has the right to file. Sometimes actually it’s determined by the agreement of the family as to who gets the right to file the case.
At any rate, if there is a wrongful death case, usually there is also a statutory distribution. So for example, in the state of Georgia, generally speaking, the surviving spouse would receive approximately, or I think it is exactly, I should say, 50% of any eventual recovery. And then the children would share in the remaining 50% for whatever amount was remaining. So if there were three children, the children, the three children would share in the 50%. If you have questions about who has what we call in the law legal standing to file the wrongful death action, feel free to call my office at 770-792-1000.