No cap, with grief explicitly recoverable
The Illinois Wrongful Death Act once capped recoveries at $30,000 under a 1967 amendment; that cap was later removed. Today, there's no noneconomic damages ceiling, and the Act explicitly lets the jury award damages for grief, sorrow, and mental suffering to the surviving spouse and next of kin — a category some states exclude or limit sharply.
A genuinely distinctive rule governs shared fault: if a specific beneficiary's own contributory fault contributed to the death, that beneficiary's individual share is reduced — but the other, non-at-fault beneficiaries' shares aren't touched and remain payable in full. One person's fault doesn't drag down the whole family's recovery.