Recently, the Pennsylvania Superior Court overturned a trial court decision that reduced a multi-million dollar wrongful death jury award to a mentally disabled woman, whose daughter had died as the result of gross negligence on the part of a residential facility where her daughter lived. The daughter suffered from cerebral palsy.
Due to the mother’s disability, she was unable to eloquently describe her relationship with her daughter or explain to the jury how devastated she was by her child’s death. The Superior Court found that testimony from other family members “was sufficient, as the best available evidence,” to allow the jury to assign a value to the mother’s loss of her child. The Superior Court reversed the trial court decision and remanded the case back to the trial court on the issue of wrongful death damages.
Recently, the Pennsylvania Superior Court overturned a trial court decision that reduced a multi-million dollar wrongful death jury award to a mentally disabled woman, whose daughter had died as the result of gross negligence on the part of a residential facility where her daughter lived. The daughter suffered from cerebral palsy.