Wrongful Death Compensation in Ohio

No amount of money replaces a person. Families tell us that talking about "damages" can feel wrong, even insulting, when what they want is their loved one back. But Ohio law uses money because it is the only remedy a civil court can give, and because the loss of a spouse, parent, or child has real and lasting effects on the people left behind. This page explains what Ohio law allows a family to recover, how those losses are proven, how caps and punitive damages work, and what does not reduce a family's recovery.

The categories Ohio law recognizes

Ohio's wrongful death statute, R.C. 2125.02(D), lists the compensatory damages a jury may award. Each category is about the family's losses, not the loss to the person who died.

Loss of support. This is the financial support the family would have received from your loved one's "reasonably expected earning capacity." It includes wages and the value of benefits such as health insurance and retirement contributions, looking at what your loved one would likely have earned over a working life.

Loss of services. Many of the most valuable things a person does have no paycheck: childcare, driving, cooking, home and yard work, caring for an aging parent, managing the household finances. The law recognizes the value of those services.

Loss of society. The statute describes this as including the loss of "companionship, consortium, care, assistance, attention, protection, advice, guidance, counsel, instruction, training, and education." For most families, this is the heart of the claim: the relationship itself.

Loss of prospective inheritance. If your loved one would likely have saved and left an estate to his or her heirs, the heirs may recover what they would have received.

Mental anguish. The statute allows damages for the mental anguish of the surviving spouse, dependent children, parents, or next of kin. This is the grief and emotional suffering the death caused the family.

Funeral and burial expenses. Under R.C. 2125.02(C)(1), the jury may also award reasonable funeral and burial expenses, which must be stated separately in the verdict. R.C. 2125.03(B) directs that this money go to the personal representative to pay or reimburse those bills.

The jury awards damages it finds "proportioned to the injury and loss" to the beneficiaries (R.C. 2125.02(C)(1)). The spouse, children, and parents are presumed to have suffered damages; other next of kin must prove theirs.

How the losses are proven

Every category is proven with evidence, and the evidence is different for each.

• Financial losses are usually proven with tax returns, pay records, benefits statements, and employment history, often with an economist who calculates future earnings and reduces them to present value. The statute allows evidence of the cost of an annuity to show the present value of future damages (R.C. 2125.02(C)(2)(b)(ii)).
• Services are proven through the family's own descriptions of what your loved one did each week, sometimes with an economist who assigns a market value.
• Society and mental anguish are proven mainly through people: family members, friends, coworkers, clergy, and coaches who can describe the relationship and what its loss has meant. Photographs, letters, and videos help a jury understand who your loved one was.

The jury may consider all factors existing at the time of death that bear on the family's damages (R.C. 2125.02(C)(2)(b)(i)). The statute also allows evidence that a surviving spouse has remarried, which the jury may consider in setting that spouse's damages (R.C. 2125.02(C)(2)(b)(iii)).

The survival claim: your loved one's own losses

Separate from the wrongful death claim, R.C. 2305.21 preserves your loved one's own injury claim after death. This survival claim can recover conscious pain and suffering before death, medical bills, wages lost between the injury and death, and property damage, such as a destroyed vehicle. In Rubeck v. Huffman, 54 Ohio St.2d 20 (1978), the Supreme Court of Ohio reversed an award where there was no evidence the person survived the collision to experience pain and suffering. Proof of what happened in the minutes or days before death therefore matters.

The survival recovery belongs to the estate, not directly to the wrongful death beneficiaries. Our chapter on wrongful death and survival claims explains the differences.

Caps on damages

Ohio caps noneconomic damages in many injury cases, but not in wrongful death cases.

• R.C. 2315.18 caps noneconomic damages in most tort cases, but division (H)(3) says the section does not apply to "Wrongful death actions brought pursuant to Chapter 2125. of the Revised Code."
• R.C. 2323.43, which caps noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases, likewise excludes wrongful death actions under Chapter 2125 in division (G)(3).
• In cases against cities, counties, and other political subdivisions, R.C. 2744.05(C)(1) limits damages that are not "actual loss" to $250,000 per person, but expressly "except in wrongful death actions."

Caps can still apply to the survival claim. For example, the pain-and-suffering portion of a survival claim is generally subject to the R.C. 2315.18(B)(2) limit: the greater of $250,000 or three times economic loss, up to $350,000 per plaintiff or $500,000 per occurrence, with exceptions for catastrophic injuries. Medical survival claims are subject to the similar limits in R.C. 2323.43. The jury is never told about the caps; the court applies them afterward.

Punitive damages

Punitive damages punish especially bad conduct rather than compensate a loss. Ohio treats them differently in the two claims.

Not in the wrongful death claim itself. The Supreme Court held in Rubeck that punitive damages are, "by definition, not available in a wrongful-death action," because the statute provides for compensatory damages. The current statute still authorizes compensatory damages (R.C. 2125.02(D)). An Ohio appellate court applied that rule in Estate of Beavers v. Knapp, 175 Ohio App.3d 758, 2008-Ohio-2023 (10th Dist.).

Available through the survival claim. Rubeck also held that the right to punitive damages for personal injury or property loss survives death and may be pursued by the estate. In Beavers, the court allowed punitive damages where the survival claim was supported by evidence of injuries and property damage before death.

Under R.C. 2315.21, punitive damages require proof of "malice or aggravated or egregious fraud" (or an employer's authorization or ratification of such conduct), proven by clear and convincing evidence. They are generally limited to two times the compensatory damages awarded against that defendant, and for an individual or small employer to the lesser of that amount or 10 percent of net worth, up to $350,000. Those limits do not apply when the defendant was convicted of a felony committed purposely or knowingly that is the basis of the case (R.C. 2315.21(D)(6)). Punitive damages may not be awarded against a political subdivision (R.C. 2744.05(A)).

What does not reduce your family's recovery

Families often worry that life insurance or other benefits will be subtracted from a recovery.

The current wrongful death statute, R.C. 2125.02, does not contain its own rule on outside benefits. The general rule is R.C. 2315.20, which applies to tort actions for injury or death. It lets a defendant introduce evidence of some collateral benefits, but not benefits from a source that has a right of subrogation (a right to be repaid), and not "a life insurance payment or a disability payment" (unless the employer paid for the policy and is itself a defendant). Life insurance your loved one bought is therefore not admissible to reduce the family's damages in an ordinary negligence case.

Two exceptions are worth knowing:

• Medical cases are governed by a different statute, R.C. 2323.41, which has its own collateral benefit rule. Ask how it applies to your family's case.
• Government defendants. In cases against a political subdivision, R.C. 2744.05(B) requires many insurance and other benefits to be deducted from the award, while stating that it does not limit a life insurance beneficiary's rights. See our page on deaths involving government and police.

What can reduce a recovery is comparative fault: if your loved one was partly at fault, R.C. 2315.33 reduces the damages by that percentage. Liens from health insurers or Medicaid may also need to be repaid from certain parts of a settlement; our chapter on liens, taxes, and benefits explains how that works.

Common questions