Losing a loved one is incredibly challenging, and when that loss is caused by medical negligence, families contend with not only grief but also burning questions. In Colorado, you can hold hospitals accountable through wrongful death lawsuits, but the process requires an understanding of state-specific statutes, caps, and timelines.
What is Colorado’s Wrongful Death Act?
In Colorado, wrongful death claims exist under specific statutes rather than common law. These statutes allow an individual’s surviving relatives to sue when another person’s negligence or poor conduct caused a death. The question is, though, whether the deceased would have had a personal injury claim if they’d survived. If so, survivors may be able to collect on their behalf.
Suing Hospitals for Patient Death
Not every hospital death is due to poor medical care, but hospitals can be held liable for a patient’s death in the following scenarios.
- A physician, nurse, or other staff member is negligent.
- The hospital fails to supervise, hire competent staff, or maintain safe equipment.
- Even errors by non‑employee contractors may qualify under certain conditions.
This liability can cover a range of actions, including surgical mistakes, misdiagnosis, medication errors, equipment failure, or failure to monitor vital signs.
Filing Requirements and Timeline
Colorado has a strict but straightforward system when it comes to filing wrongful death lawsuits. The individual’s surviving spouse may file at any time within the first year of their death. If no spouse exists, the individual’s surviving children, parents, and sometimes siblings can file within the second year.
The statute of limitations on these filings is two years. Missing the deadline means losing the right to sue.
Types of Recoverable Damages
Economic Damages
Non-Economic Damages
Survival Action Damages
These are separate claims that the deceased’s estate can pursue for the losses incurred before death, such as pain and suffering, which are distinct from wrongful death claims.
Medical Malpractice Caps for Wrongful Death
- $550,000 in 2025
- $810,000 in 2026
- $1,065,000 in 2027
- $1,320,000 in 2028
- $1,575,000 in 2029
Proving Liability Against a Hospital
To succeed in a wrongful death claim involving medical malpractice, you must show duty, breach, causation, and damages.
- Duty: Duty refers to the hospital or provider’s recognized standard of care.
- Breach: A breach occurs when the provider or facility deviates from these standards.
- Causation: The breach had to have resulted in the individual’s death.
- Damages: The individual’s surviving loved ones suffer quantifiable harm and seek compensation for these damages.
Cases often require expert testimony to establish what the acceptable standard of care is and how it was violated. Hospitals may argue defenses like contributory negligence, independent contractor status, or lack of proximate cause.
Sample Timeline
In this hypothetical case, a patient dies on February 10th, 2025 due to suspected failure of hospital staff to monitor her vital signs after surgery. The individual’s spouse has until February 10th of 2027 to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Under HB 24‑1472, if the damage claim is non‑malpractice wrongful death, the non‑economic cap is $2.125 million. If it’s medical malpractice, non-economic damages follow the schedule mentioned above.
How an Attorney Can Help
A wrongful death case can be highly complex, especially when the defendant is a hospital or medical provider. The process involves determining who is allowed to bring the claim, gathering and preserving evidence, engaging with qualified medical experts, and reconstructing the timeline of the events. It can also be challenging to distinguish between wrongful death and survival actions, calculating damages, and ensuring requirements and deadlines are met.
An experienced Colorado wrongful death attorney ensures:
- Evidence is preserved.
- Medical experts support your claim of negligence.
- You maximize every recoverable category of damages.
- You file before the statute expires.
In Colorado, wrongful death actions provide a path to compensation for survivors and accountability for medical providers. But they’re governed by strict statutes, eligibility rules, timelines, and caps that have been recently updated. As such, it’s important to step into this journey with support.
If you’ve lost someone due to hospital negligence, time is of the essence. Contact a Colorado wrongful death attorney promptly to ensure your family’s rights are protected.
References
https://law.justia.com/codes/colorado/2021/title-13/article-21/part-2/section-13-21-202/
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1472
https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/fn/2024a_hb1472_00.pdf
https://cle.cobar.org/tableofcontents/ZWDLHC02B.pdf
https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2024a_1472_signed.pdf
