When a person dies from an injury in Georgia, two distinct claims can arise: a wrongful death claim and a claim brought through the estate, each addressing different losses. The distinction clarifies what each claim covers and who brings it.
One claim measures the life itself. The wrongful death action centers on the full value of the life lost, viewed from the perspective of the deceased rather than the survivors’ financial dependency, and is held by certain family members. That measure, unusual among injury claims, sets this action apart.
The estate pursues a different kind of loss. A separate claim brought through the estate generally covers what the deceased personally experienced, such as medical expenses and the conscious suffering endured before death. It looks to what the person bore, not the value of the life.
Each claim has its own claimant. Because the two address different losses, they are brought by different parties, the survivors for one and the estate for the other. A single death can support both, held in different hands.
The value of the life, the losses the deceased personally bore, and the separate parties who bring each claim mark the line between a wrongful death action and an estate claim. Because the recoveries run to different hands, the two are often pursued together yet accounted for separately, and a recovery on one does not stand in for the other.