Brain Injury Lawyer Blog

Earlier this week, we published a story about the death of Sunny von Bulow after 28 years in a coma. See previous blog. This has been a sensational story for nearly three decades, with little relevance to what we do as traumatic brain injury lawyers. However, there are two issues that are relevant, seemingly buried in this story.

The first is that the cost of caring for her. According to the story: “Her doctor testified that the cost of maintaining her was $375,000 the first year, 1981.” In any catastrophic injury case, there is always an argument about the cost of care. Her care cost $375,000, in 1981. Adjusted to today’s dollars, that would be well in excess of a million dollars.

Perhaps the most important personal injury precedent in this case, is that Sunny, despite her severe coma, lived 28 years, likely to her normal life expectancy. One thing defense lawyers try to argue in almost every case is that they should not have to pay the cost of care for a normal life expectancy because the now severely injured plaintiff won’t live very long. Such an argument should be rule unconscionable and never allowed, because no defendant should get the benefit of a reduced life expectancy, caused by its own conduct.

But what the von Bulow case shows is that if you get the best care, with evolving improving care for comatose patients, there is no reason to presume a shortened life expectancy. Perhaps the lower standard of care defense lawyers claim is all that is necessary will result in a shortened life expectancy. But for Sunny, because she got the best care, her life wasn’t shortened by the wrongdoing.

We believe that if a person’s life is shortened by wrongful conduct, at the point of death, then the actionable conduct becomes a wrongful death. Here there was no “wrongful death” just the loss of everything that “life” means other than a heartbeat