It depends. A New Jersey School district paid $9.1 million to parents of bullied student, Mallory Grossman who died by suicide in 2017. See news report here.
But most states do not allow recovery in cases of death by suicide. They follow the archaic “suicide rule” that considers death by suicide a voluntary act that breaks the chain of causation. Such a rule would prevent a family from holding a school district accountable for failing to protect a student.
The New Jersey settlement and other cases demonstrate a trend to move away from that rule and toward the more progressive California analysis. In 1960 California court established that a wrongdoer may be liable for intentional misconduct resulting in suicide. See, Tate v. Canonica at 901-915.
More recently, in a bullying case, a judge in Riverside refused to let a school district off the hook. The Judge stated that a jury should decide: (1) whether the school district’s failure to train staff to prevent bullying may have caused the student’s mental condition that led to the uncontrollable suicide attempt; or (2) whether the link between the District’ s failure to train staff to prevent students from leaving school and student’ s mental condition led to student’s act of suicide. Morrison v. Alvord Unified School Dist. (Cal.Super. No. RIC1705829.)
California case law recognizes that a wrongdoer should be accountable for actions that cause a mental condition that leads to an uncontrollable impulsive act.
Q: My father was killed in an accident that was not his fault. As a result, I ended up with an inheritance. Will the inheritance count against me if I sue the wrongdoer who caused my father’s death?
A: No. At least not in a case in California. It’s not what you received as a result of your father’s death that counts. Rather, in a wrongful death case, the “measure of damages” is what the heirs “were receiving at the time of the death of the deceased” and what such heirs “would have received had decedent lived.” Johnson v. Western Air Exp. Corp. (1941) 45 Cal.App.2d 614, 622.
In fact, what a plaintiff inherited as a result of a wrongful death of a family member is not supposed to even be allowed into evidence. That’s because the financial benefits an heir may have received as a result of the death are not relevant to their damages. Further, a wrongdoer may not escape responsibility for his negligent acts by pointing to the plaintiff’s receipt of funds that the wrongdoer didn’t provide. Any benefit that a plaintiff received as a result of a wrongful death is not to be considered in assessing damages in a wrongful death action, either as an item of deduction or a ground for awarding only nominal damages, and so the jury should not even be told of an inheritance.
This principle was first set forth in a case called McLaughlin v. United Railroads. In that case, the heirs of Mrs. McLaughlin brought an action against a Railroad for the wrongful death of their mother. The family had inherited from their mother assets which generated rental income: “a return in no wise dependent upon the skill, ability, or exertions of the deceased.” The Railroad argued to admit evidence that the children had “by the death of the mother come into the ownership of all of her property” to show that the compensation they were entitled to from the Railroad should be reduced to prevent a double recovery. In rejecting the Railroad’s argument the Court stated:
This rule of evidence has its foundation in the refusal of the court to allow the defendant to benefit by his own wrong, to lessen his responsibility in damages for the injury which he has inflicted, by a showing that, quite fortuitously, through no contribution of defendant’s own, the plaintiffs have received a certain pecuniary benefit.
McLaughlin, supra, 169 Cal. at 498 (emphasis added).
Today, the rule in Calfiornia remains: income or property that transferred to the victim’s heirs as a result of the wrongful death should not be admitted as evidence at trial.