Auto Accidents and Fair Dependency Claims

Jeffrey Strype discusses the role of the lawyer in easing the anxiety and securing fair dependency claims for the survivors of fatalities.

In the early hours of Tuesday, September 30th, a taxi driver was killed in a collision on the QEW near Dixie Road. The driver was a father and a grandfather coming home from his night shift when his van was hit by a speeding BMW. Although the focus of the news reports centre on the crime of the allegedly impaired driver, the real travesty affects the family members.

The family members, including the wife, children and grandchildren, will face a long drawn out legal battle to assert their claims of dependency arising from the loss of the family breadwinner. The deceased’s own insurance company will look after specified death benefits, but these will not in any way replace the income that the deceased will have generated throughout the balance of his working life.

At a time when grief is paramount, our legal system requires the survivors to methodically detail the life of the deceased and his family to attempt to prove a claim that really should be quite straightforward. The family will be forced to document their relationship with their father or spouse in all details, including intimate details. The insurers will ask for all medical records of all members to see whether the deceased would have died prematurely in any event. All financial records will be asked for and reviewed to try and demonstrate some issue with past income to try and reduce the claims of the surviving family members.

Families in this situation really need to have sophisticated legal, accounting, and actuarial experts ready to review all financial documents and provide the lawyer with a bullet proof accounting report to move the insurer to deal with the matter fairly, reasonably and quickly. The lawyer’s job is to become the go-between, to help the family deal with the overwhelming inquiries arising from the death and to reduce the severe anxiety about what life is going to be like without the family member.