States With Caps on Wrongful Death Damages

By the FigureMyTax Editorial Team · How we calculate

Alabama doesn't cap wrongful death damages against a private defendant - but not for the reason you might expect. It's not that Alabama chose to leave an uncapped compensatory system in place; it's that Alabama's wrongful death damages aren't compensatory at all.

Why there's nothing to cap

Most state damage caps limit the compensatory portion of a wrongful death award - the dollar value assigned to lost income, loss of companionship, or funeral costs. Alabama's wrongful death statute, Ala. Code §6-5-410, doesn't provide for compensatory damages at all - only punitive damages. Alabama's general punitive damages cap (Ala. Code §6-11-21: the greater of 3 times compensatory damages or $500,000) explicitly carves out wrongful death, since there's no compensatory figure to measure a multiple against in the first place.

The one real exception

Wrongful death claims against a government entity are capped at $100,000 per person and $300,000 in the aggregate, under Ala. Code §§11-47-190 and 11-93-2 - the same cap that applies to ordinary injury claims against a city or county. This cap applies regardless of how egregious the government's conduct was, which is a real constraint families should know about if the at-fault party is a public employee or agency.

How this compares to other states

Most states take the opposite structural approach from Alabama: they allow compensatory wrongful death damages (lost financial support, loss of companionship, funeral and burial costs) as the primary remedy, with punitive damages available only in cases involving especially bad conduct, similar to how punitive damages work in ordinary injury cases elsewhere. Some of those states then cap the noneconomic portion of that compensatory award, the same way many states cap pain and suffering in personal injury cases generally. A handful of state constitutions go the other direction and specifically prohibit capping wrongful death damages at all.

Alabama's system is genuinely unusual on both counts: it's the only state built around punitive-only damages, and - against a private defendant - the result is effectively uncapped, since there was never a compensatory figure for a cap to limit in the first place.

This is general information, not legal advice, and the comparison to other states is illustrative, not an exhaustive survey. Confirm the current Alabama government-claim cap amount and how it applies to your situation with a licensed attorney.