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Actions for Personal Injury and for Death from Same Cause

When damages for injuries and damages for wrongful death are the result of separate trials, verdicts, and judgments, a judgment in a personal representative’s action for wrongful death will not be res judicata as to the representative’s action against the same defendant for damages for the decedent’s personal injuries.  Therefore, where the two causes of action may coexist, the pendency of one of the actions cannot be pleaded in abatement of the other.  However, in Sea-Land Servs. v. Gaudet, 414 U.S. 573 (U.S. 1974), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a wrongful-death action could be brought by dependents of a decedent longshoreman, although the decedent had previously recovered in his own suit based on the same wrongful act.


Inside Actions for Personal Injury and for Death from Same Cause