Opinion ID: 2156240
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alfone and Silverman

Text: That view was embraced by the Appellate Division in Alfone v. Sarno, supra, 168 N.J.Super. 315, 403 A. 2d 9. In Alfone, the decedent sued Dr. Sarno for malpractice in 1968. She died in 1974. Within two years of her death, her father commenced a wrongful death action, alleging that the malpractice caused her death. Judge King asked whether the [wrongful-death] cause of action is, in view of the [statutory] language, totally derivative from the rights possessed by decedent as of the time of death or is independent of decedent's rights[,] a separate cause of action inhering in the beneficiaries. Id. at 321, 403 A. 2d 9. He concluded that beneficiaries under the Wrongful Death Act have a cause of action separate from and independent of the decedent's malpractice action. Id. at 323, 403 A. 2d 9. That conclusion found its source in Lawlor: The continued validity in this jurisdiction of the derivative-dependent character of the [wrongful-death] cause of action is most questionable in light of [di ]ictum in the unanimous opinion of our Supreme Court in Lawlor.