Opinion ID: 2639659
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether It Was Error To Permit Isabel To Recover for Loss of Alfred's Future Earnings, Despite the Alleged Lack of Evidence of Her Dependence on His Earnings

Text: The borough argues that Isabel presented no evidence to show she was dependent on Alfred's earnings and that the trial court therefore erred by instructing the jury that it could award his lost future earnings to Isabel as a beneficiary. The trial court did not explicitly rule on this issue when the borough raised it below. The borough concedes on appeal that Isabel's dependence on Alfred's subsistence and non-market support was sufficient to justify the jury's finding that she was an other dependent under the wrongful death statute, but contends that it was not sufficient to justify awarding her Alfred's lost future earnings. The borough argues that Isabel was required to prove specifically that she was dependent on those earnings at the time of Alfred's death because a statutory beneficiary's recovery must be measured by the loss to the beneficiary. Kulawik renders this argument unsustainable. There we held that damages recovered by a statutory beneficiary need not be measured by the loss to that beneficiary. [27] We rejected the argument that statutory beneficiaries are entitled to only their `actual losses,' noting that [n]o language in the statute... so limits the recovery. [28] We stated that [significantly, the [wrongful death] act focuses not merely on the individual losses to each beneficiary, but more generally on the entire `injury resulting from the death.' [29] And we stated that limiting damages only to what the statutory beneficiaries could prove they would have inherited is contrary to the language of the act, which limits damages only by the common law tort concept of proximate cause, and requires that damages be fairly compensatory for the injury resulting from the death, without specifying that the injury must be suffered by a statutory dependent. [30] We held that the beneficiaries should be allowed to recover the entire value of their father's future estate even though they could only prove that they would have inherited half of that estate. [31] Kulawik controls. Once the jury found Isabel to be an other dependent, she was not required to prove dependence on Alfred's future earnings. The trial court did not err by allowing the jury to award loss of Alfred's future earnings, despite the alleged lack of evidence that Isabel depended on those earnings at the time of Alfred's death.