Losing someone because of another person’s carelessness is not the same as losing someone to illness or age, and Pennsylvania law gives your family the right to hold that person accountable. There’s the grief itself, and then there’s the separate, harder feeling that none of this needed to happen, that a choice someone else made took your family member away. The Slocum Firm has sat across the table from enough Scranton families in that exact position to know that what you need first is someone who will listen, and only after that, someone who can explain what the law allows your family to do.
That order matters to us. A phone call that jumps straight into legal terminology, deadlines, and dollar figures before anyone has asked how your family is actually doing gets the priorities backward, and we’ve built our intake process specifically to avoid that.
We handle wrongful death cases with the seriousness they require, and we handle the people bringing them with the patience grief actually needs. When you’re ready, not before, we can walk you through what a Scranton wrongful death lawyer can do for your family, what the law requires, and how much time you realistically have. Call (570) 209-7376 whenever that time comes, day or night, and you’ll speak with an attorney directly.
No version of this makes sense on a normal timeline. Some families call within hours of learning what happened. Others take weeks because they’re focused on a funeral, on other children who still need to be picked up from school, on simply getting through each day.
Both are reasonable, and we will meet you wherever you are, though we’ll also be honest with you early on about which parts of Pennsylvania law run on a clock, so that grief and legal deadlines don’t end up working against each other.
What Pennsylvania Law Calls a Wrongful Death Claim
Under the Pennsylvania Wrongful Death Act, 42 Pa.C.S. § 8301, certain family members can bring a civil claim when someone dies because of another party’s negligence, recklessness, or intentional conduct. This exists separately from the criminal justice system, and it matters for a reason many families don’t expect going in.
A wrongful death claim can move forward even if no criminal charges were ever filed, and even if criminal charges were filed and ended in an acquittal. The criminal court has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, a much higher bar than the civil court requires. A family that watched a criminal case fall short, or that never saw one filed at all, still has options under Pennsylvania civil law, and that distinction alone brings a lot of families to a conversation about their rights for the first time.
Who Is Allowed to File on Behalf of Your Family?
Under Pennsylvania court rules, specifically Pa.R.Civ.P. 2202, a wrongful death action must be brought by the personal representative of the deceased, meaning the executor or administrator of the estate. That person files on behalf of the family, but the money recovered belongs to the family members the law recognizes as beneficiaries.
Those beneficiaries are typically the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the person who died. If none of those relatives survive, Pennsylvania law allows the claim to benefit other dependents who relied on the deceased. If no personal representative has been appointed within six months of the death, a beneficiary can step in and bring the action directly, so a family isn’t stuck waiting on probate paperwork before protecting its rights.
Families sometimes assume this process requires them to already have an estate fully opened and organized before anything can happen, and that’s not accurate. An attorney can often help start the personal representative process alongside the wrongful death claim itself, rather than requiring one to be finished before the other begins. That matters in the early weeks after a loss, when probate is often the last thing anyone has the bandwidth to think about.
Two Different Claims, Filed Together
Pennsylvania actually allows two separate legal actions after a wrongful death, and understanding the difference matters because they compensate for different things. The wrongful death action, under 42 Pa.C.S. § 8301, compensates the surviving family for what they personally lost. The survival action, under 42 Pa.C.S. § 8302, compensates the estate for what the deceased person would have been entitled to claim had they lived.
In practice, these two claims are usually filed together in the same case, since Pennsylvania procedure requires them to be consolidated when both apply. The wrongful death portion looks at the family’s loss going forward. The survival portion compensates the estate for the decedent’s pre-death pain and expenses, as well as their lost earning capacity for their remaining life expectancy, calculated net of maintenance costs.
What Can Your Family Actually Recover?
The wrongful death action can cover funeral and burial expenses, medical costs incurred before death, the financial support your family has lost, the value of household services and childcare the person provided, and the loss of their guidance and companionship. Pennsylvania juries are permitted to consider all of these categories, not just the purely financial ones.
The survival action covers different ground. It can include the pain and suffering your loved one experienced between the incident and their death, the future earnings they would have accumulated over a normal working life, and medical or related expenses tied directly to their final injuries. Because this claim belongs to the estate rather than to individual family members, any recovery typically passes through probate before it reaches beneficiaries.
Families sometimes hesitate over the survival action specifically, since thinking through what a loved one experienced in their final hours or days is one of the hardest parts of this entire process. We handle that part of the case carefully, relying on medical records and outside medical testimony rather than asking family members to reconstruct those details from memory alone. It’s a legal requirement of the claim, but it doesn’t have to be something your family carries unassisted.
The Two-Year Deadline No Family Should Face Without Warning
Pennsylvania gives you two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death lawsuit under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5524. This is not a soft guideline. Missing it permanently closes the door for every family member who might otherwise have had a claim, regardless of how strong the underlying case was.
If a case in the Scranton area ends up in litigation, it will typically be filed at the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas in downtown Scranton, or in the appropriate county court if the death occurred elsewhere in northeastern Pennsylvania. Two years can feel like more time than it is, especially in the middle of grief, funeral arrangements, and the practical weight of settling someone’s affairs. We say this gently but directly: the earlier a family talks to an attorney, the more options usually remain open, and the easier it becomes to gather evidence before it starts to fade on its own.
What Usually Causes a Wrongful Death Case in Scranton?
Motor vehicle accidents account for a large share of the wrongful death cases we handle, including crashes involving the commercial trucks that run I-81 through this city, where the size difference alone often turns a survivable collision into a fatal one. Workplace accidents make up another significant portion, particularly in manufacturing and industrial settings, where a failure to follow safety procedures has permanent consequences.
Slip and fall accidents, defective products, and premises liability cases round out the rest of what we see. Each of these categories requires a different kind of investigation, but the starting point is always the same conversation: what happened, who was involved, and what your family is now facing because of it.
A death caused by a distracted or fatigued commercial driver on I-81 looks nothing like a death caused by a defective product or an unsafe property, and the evidence that matters in each case is almost entirely different. Trucking cases often hinge on electronic logs and maintenance records that need to be preserved within days.
Premises liability cases hinge on inspection records, maintenance logs, and whether the property owner knew about a hazard and failed to fix it. We treat every case as its own investigation rather than fitting it into a template built for something else.
Whatever happened, we’re here to talk it through.
Why Moving Quickly Protects the Evidence Your Case Will Need
We understand that legal deadlines are often the last thing on a grieving family’s mind, and that’s a completely reasonable place to be. But evidence doesn’t wait for grief to pass. Surveillance footage gets overwritten, witnesses move away, or their memories fade, and internal company records can be routinely deleted on a schedule that has nothing to do with your timeline.
One of the first things an attorney does in a wrongful death case is send a formal litigation hold and preservation demand to the parties involved, legally requiring them to keep records, footage, and physical evidence intact. This step often needs to happen within days of the incident, not weeks, particularly in cases involving commercial vehicles or corporate defendants who have their own procedures for cycling out old data.
None of this is meant to add pressure to an already overwhelming time. It’s the opposite, actually: getting this piece handled early means your family can step back from the legal timeline for a while and focus on what needs focusing on, knowing that the evidence your case will eventually need has already been secured. That’s a large part of what an attorney’s first week on a case is genuinely for.
A Firm That Sits With Families Before It Talks Strategy
The Slocum Firm has represented Pennsylvania families since 2009, and wrongful death cases are some of the most serious work we do. We keep our caseload small enough that you work directly with the attorney handling your file, not a case manager relaying messages back and forth, and that attorney is reachable by phone or text 24 hours a day.
Our recovery rate has stayed above 95%, built in part on cases exactly like this one, where the stakes and the emotional weight are both at their highest. Results may vary. Prior case outcomes do not guarantee similar results.
Every case we take is on contingency, so your family never pays anything upfront, and our fee only comes from money we actually recover on your behalf.
We also understand that no amount of money changes what your family is living through. What it can do is cover the funeral costs that arrived while everyone was still in shock, replace income that was counted on, and give the people left behind some measure of stability while they rebuild around the absence of someone they loved. We treat that responsibility as seriously as any part of this work, because for the families we’ve represented, it usually is the part that matters most in the years that follow.
When you’re ready to talk, call The Slocum Firm at (570) 209-7376. We’ll take whatever time the conversation needs, and there’s no obligation attached to that first call.
FAQs: Scranton Wrongful Death Lawyer
Here are answers to questions Scranton families often have in the early days after a loss like this.
How long do I have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Pennsylvania?
You generally have two years from the date of death to file under Pennsylvania law. This deadline applies to the whole family at once, so missing it closes the door for every beneficiary, not just whoever might have filed first.
Who can file a wrongful death claim in Pennsylvania?
The personal representative of the estate, meaning the executor or administrator, files the claim on behalf of the family. The people who actually benefit from any recovery are typically the surviving spouse, children, or parents, with other dependents eligible if none of those relatives survive.
What is the difference between a wrongful death claim and a survival action?
A wrongful death claim compensates the surviving family for what they personally lost, including financial support, companionship, and guidance. A survival action compensates the deceased person’s estate for what they would have been entitled to claim themselves, including pain and suffering and lost future income.
Can I file a wrongful death claim if the person who caused the death was not charged criminally?
Yes. A wrongful death claim is a civil matter, separate from any criminal case, and it can proceed whether or not charges were filed and regardless of the outcome of a criminal trial. Civil court uses a lower burden of proof than criminal court requires.
What damages can my family recover in a Pennsylvania wrongful death case?
Recoverable damages can include funeral and burial costs, medical expenses before death, lost financial support, the value of lost household services, and the loss of a loved one’s companionship and guidance. A separate survival action can add pain and suffering, lost future earnings, and related expenses on top of that.
Reaching Out When You’re Ready
If your family lost a loved one because of someone else’s negligence in Scranton or anywhere in northeastern Pennsylvania, The Slocum Firm is here whenever you’re ready to talk. Call (570) 209-7376, available 24 hours a day, and you’ll speak directly with an attorney who will handle your case with genuine care and the seriousness it calls for. There’s no fee unless we recover money for your family.
