Wrongful Death

Our Cape May & Atlantic City Attorny Fights for Families Seeking Justice

Any serious accident can be a painful and difficult experience. Nothing can prepare you, however, for the pain you suffer when a loved one dies because of someone else’s negligence. No matter the cause, negligently caused deaths hurt all the more because they are sudden and preventable. Many people believe that because the accident victim is deceased, the negligent party has no one to answer to. However, New Jersey wrongful death laws provide family members with the ability to obtain compensation for the financial and emotional impact of an accidental death. The mental anguish of losing a spouse, parent or child can haunt you for years. Not only are you grieving, but you may also lose financial support your deceased family member provided.

Why Hire Pender & Strickland

Each wrongful death attorney at our law firm has a strong understanding of New Jersey’s wrongful death laws. Thus, we can help you determine if you have a cause of action. Our law firm has over 60 years of combined experience representing the grieving families of fatal accident victims. This includes a $6.35 million verdict for medical malpractice causing our client to bleed to death. We can investigate the accident and determine  if it was a result of negligence. Take advantage of the free consultation that we offer to you.

Other successful wrongful death recoveries include:

• An $8.8 million verdict for the family of a concrete company worker who died when a defectively-straddled crane rolled over him, inflicting terrible degloving injuries. After surviving for a short while in the hospital, the worker died. After a two-week trial, the jury found in favor of the worker’s family against the worker’s employer and the crane manufacturer.

• $6.35-million-dollar medical malpractice & wrongful death settlement.

  Medical malpractice claim that resulted in the death of a 42-year-old man who left behind his wife of 21 years and 6 children. Our client slowly bled to death in the hospital from undetected bleeding from his spleen following a biopsy procedure for suspected lymphoma.  Hospital staff failed to take our client's vital signs for several hours, despite a post operative order by the surgeon to monitor the same every two hours.  Later, when vitals signs were taken, our client's heart rate was nearly three times normal and his blood pressure had dropped dangerously low.   In this setting, a surgeon should have been called immediately.  Instead, hospital Residents were called by the nurse.  The Residents left  the patient shortly after the exam, despite vitals signs which one defense expert surgeon described as bad enough that "the janitor should have known to call the surgeon."  More time passed.  Our client eventually crashed.  The surgeon was called, but it was too late. Efforts by surgeons to save our client were unsuccessful.   Our investigation revealed that over 8 hours passed before a surgeon was called.  We also discovered that the lead Resident was admitted to a for-profit medical school in the Caribbean, even though she did not  graduate from any college or take a medical school admission test; some college credits in science was the only requirement.  The same Resident failed multiple exams to qualify to work in a hospital while at the for profit "medical school."   None of this information was provided to our client by the hospital or medical professionals involved.  The defendants all denied any responsibility.  We retained medical experts in oncology, surgery, internal medicine and nursing care.  The case was resolved after 5 years of litigation shortly before jury selection.

• $2.7-million-dollar product liability settlement for the family of an Ocean County man who suffered severe burn injury and death.

  Military explosive was mixed with scrap metal mistakenly delivered to recycling facility by U.S. Military Defense Contractor.  Our client was working with scrap metal when a massive explosion erupted on the sorting table.  Our client died the next day of severe burn injuries over his entire body.  The material which caused the explosion was identified as a compound used for countermeasure flares by military aircraft.  Authorities shut down the area surrounding the incident while other suspicious material was removed.  The exact supplier of the material was not determined by authorities.  We filed suit against the United States and defense contractors which made this material and also supplied scrap metal to the recycling facility.    The United States military denied that it was the supplier.  Our investigation of the case resulted in inspections and depositons at military warfare centers and defense contractors throughout the country.  We were able to determine the supplier of the material, a defense contractor that sold off its scrap.  We retained the foremost expert in military explosives as an expert in the case.  The case was filed in the Federal Court and was settled with the Magistrate before trial. 

• An $850,000 Atlantic City jury verdict for delayed diagnosis of cancer and wrongful death. The deceased’s doctors negligently failed to diagnose stomach cancer, and the delay allowed the cancer to advance and ruined any chance of survival. The case was successfully litigated all the way to the New Jersey Supreme Court.