Attorneys litigating survival or wrongful-death causes of action must have a clear understanding of the kinds of damages available to their clients.

At common law, a decedent’s cause of action died with him, and relatives and dependents had no cause of action for their own damages. As Prosser and Keeton on Torts (1984) characterizes the common-law state of affairs, “[F]rom the defendant’s point of view, it was cheaper to kill a person than to scratch him.”