Recovering Punitive Damages

Answer:

People sometimes wonder if they can collect punitive damages in a wrongful death case. The answer is, yes, you can. In fact, I have a case in Wyoming in federal court right now in which a wrongful woman was killed in a collision. The driver of a semi-tractor trailer drove off and left the scene with people in a roll-over vehicle off the highway. Nobody saw the crash, and he left them to die. Now, we collected punitive damages in that case because he drove off. Not only did he drive off, he communicated with his trucking company. The driver and the president of the trucking company concocted a story that they told to the trooper about hitting a deer. In that kind of case, you can get punitive damages. In fact, the wrongful death statute itself calls for exemplary damages in the right kind of case. Exemplary damages, of course, is another term for punitive damages, so yes, you can collect punitive damages in the right wrongful death case. That is a powerful deterrent to companies. If you have some punitive damages in the right case, it can look like you won’t prevent those kinds of issues in the future. Give us a call if you have more questions at my office in Cheyenne.