Hi, I’m Roger Ghai and I wanted to talk to you about to talk today a little bit about wrongful death actions in the state of Georgia. The statute itself can be somewhat complicated and the measure of damages can also be somewhat complicated to determine. The measure of damages is defined as the full value of the life of the decedent, this involves both economic damages and non-economic damages. When we talk about the full value of the life of the decedent, the measure is from the decedents that is from the deceased person point of view. It is not from a son or daughter or wife or brother.
One of the primary economic factors in determining the value or the case value of someone who has passed away is the lost wages. In Georgia, future lost wages is usually determined by the life expectancy of the individual. More particularly in Georgia, we use or we rely on immortality tables to determine what a persons life expectancy is. If a wrongful death action does have to be filed and you have questions, feel free to call my office at 770-792-1000.