Who the claim is for, and how it's capped
Under Courts and Judicial Proceedings §3-904, a wrongful death action is for the benefit of the deceased's spouse, parent and child; if none survive, relatives by blood or marriage who were substantially dependent on the deceased may qualify. Damages are proportioned to each beneficiary's injury from the death.
Noneconomic damages are capped under §11-108 at the same figure as personal injury claims, raised to 150% when there are two or more claimants. The decedent's own pre-death suffering is a separate survival action with its own cap, so the Department of Legislative Services calculates a combined ceiling of $2,450,000 from October 1, 2026 when two or more beneficiaries exist. Medical malpractice deaths fall under a lower cap in §3-2A-09, set at 125% of the single-claimant figure for multiple beneficiaries and applied in the aggregate to all claims from the same injury.