Wrongful Death in Alabama
If someone in your family was killed by another person’s carelessness, Alabama handles your case differently from almost every other state. Three of those differences decide cases, and none of them is obvious.
There is a deadline that cannot be extended. If the person who died was a child, there is a second one, and it is six months.
Alabama pays for wrongdoing, not for loss
In every other state, a wrongful death case asks what the family lost — medical bills, funeral costs, the income the person would have earned, the companionship that is gone.
Alabama does not ask that question.
In an Alabama wrongful death case the only damages available are punitive. They are measured by how wrongful the defendant’s conduct was, not by what your family lost. Alabama juries are instructed to consider only the wrongdoing, and are specifically instructed not to consider the monetary value of the life that was taken or your family’s need for compensation.
There is no category of economic or non-economic damages here. Alabama is the only state in the country that works this way.
This surprises nearly everyone, and it cuts both ways. A case with modest economic losses and outrageous conduct can be worth a great deal. A devastating financial loss caused by ordinary carelessness may be worth less than you would expect. If someone has quoted you a number built on lost wages and medical bills, they were describing the law of a different state.
Ala. Code § 6-5-410.Who can file — and this is where families lose cases
When an adult dies
Only the personal representative of the estate may bring the action. Not the spouse, not the children, not the parents — the personal representative, acting in that capacity. If no one has been appointed, that appointment is the first step, and it is not a formality.
When a child dies
The rule is different, and there is a clock inside it.
The father or the mother brings the action — not the personal representative. But if both parents have died, or they decline to bring it, or they simply fail to bring it within six months of the child’s death, the right passes to the child’s personal representative.
A grieving parent who spends five months deciding whether to do anything at all can lose their own standing to a rule nobody told them about.
Which parent also matters. If the parents were lawfully living together as husband and wife, they have an equal right to file. If they were not living together, or if legal custody had been placed with one parent or with someone else, then the person with legal custody has the exclusive right to bring the action. A non-custodial parent who files may have no standing at all.
Ala. Code §§ 6-5-390, 6-5-391.Two years — and not the usual kind of deadline
A wrongful death action in Alabama must be commenced within two years from and after the death. Not from the injury. From the death.
Here is what makes it unusual. In most kinds of cases a missed deadline is a defense the other side has to raise, and there are doctrines that can pause the clock. That is not how this works. The Alabama Supreme Court has held that the two-year period is a statute of creation — the time limit is part of the right itself. When it runs out, there is no longer a claim to bring.
It cannot be tolled. It is not paused because a survivor is a minor. The same two years applies whether the person who died was an adult or a child.
Two years sounds like a long time. It is not, once you account for the appointment of a personal representative, an investigation, records, and the fact that the people who saw what happened become harder to find every month.
Where the money goes
Whatever is recovered is not an ordinary asset of the estate and does not pass under the will. It is distributed to the heirs under Alabama’s statute of distributions. When the person who died was a child, it is distributed under Alabama’s intestate succession statutes.
This surprises families who assume a will controls it. It does not. Who receives what is set by statute.
Ala. Code §§ 6-5-410, 6-5-391; Ala. Code § 43-8-40 et seq.What to do now
You do not need to have decided anything to make the first call. What is useful early is simple: what happened, when it happened, who was there, and whether anyone has been appointed to represent the estate.
If the person who died was your child, call sooner rather than later. The six-month rule is the one that catches people.
Talk to someone today
We answer the phone 24 hours a day. There is no charge for the first conversation, and you do not have to decide anything on it. Call the office or email injury@dsp.law.
This page describes Alabama law in general terms and is not legal advice about your situation. Every case turns on its own facts. Daniel S. Pickens is licensed to practice law in Alabama only.