Wrong-Way Driving Accident Lawyer in New Orleans

Fatal Wrong Way Crashes and Louisiana Wrongful Death Claims

Some wrong-way crashes do not end with a hospital stay. They end with a phone call no family is ready for. Nothing about a legal claim undoes that. What it can do is hold the responsible driver accountable and protect the people left behind.

Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim

Louisiana does not let just anyone file. La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2 sets a strict order, and only the first surviving group on the list may bring the claim:

• The surviving spouse and children, or either the spouse or the children
• The surviving parents, if there is no spouse or child
• The surviving siblings, if there is no spouse, child, or parent
• The surviving grandparents, if none of the above survive

If you are not sure where your family falls, call us. Because eligibility and prescription rules are specific to the circumstances, families should have the applicable claims and deadlines reviewed promptly.

Your Family May Have Two Separate Claims

Most people have heard of wrongful death. Far fewer know about the survival action, and families lose real money by missing it.

A wrongful death claim covers the losses the surviving family members sustained because of the death. Louisiana law recognizes loss of consortium, service, and society as compensable, recoverable by these same categories of family members (La. Civ. Code art. 2315).

A survival action is a different claim. Under La. Civ. Code art. 2315.1, it belongs to the person who died and passes to the same family members in the same order. It recovers what that person suffered between the crash and their death, including their medical bills and the pain they endured. When someone survives a head-on impact for hours or days, this claim can carry serious value.

Our New Orleans personal injury lawyers pursue both claims together so nothing is left on the table.

The Deadline Works Differently Than an Injury Case

A wrongful death claim prescribes one year from the date of death, or two years from the day the injury was sustained, whichever period is longer (La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(B)). The survival action follows the same rule. Because the crash date and the date of death are often not the same day, do not assume you have two years. Let someone check the calendar against your specific dates.

The 51 percent fault bar applies to these claims too, and fault is fought over just as hard in a fatal case.

What If the Wrong-Way Driver Died in the Crash?

This happens more often than people expect. In its study of fatal wrong-way crashes on divided highways from 2010 through 2018, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that more than half the people killed were the wrong-way drivers themselves.

Families in that position often assume the claim died with the driver. It did not.

Louisiana’s direct action law lists specific circumstances in which an injured person, or the family members named in La. Civ. Code arts. 2315.1 and 2315.2, may pursue the at-fault driver’s insurer directly. One of those circumstances is that the insured has died (La. R.S. 22:1269(B)(1)(f)). The same provision lists an uninsured motorist carrier as another.

A driver’s death does not necessarily eliminate an injured person’s potential insurance claim. Louisiana law provides specific circumstances in which an injured person or qualifying survivor may pursue an insurer directly, including when the insured has died. Whether that option applies depends on the facts and applicable policy.

These claims do get harder. There may be a succession involved, and the case must be built without any account from the driver who caused it. That is work our team is built for.