On the Job Death

[mbk1980]

My question involves injury or loss that occurred in the state of: Maryland


My father was killed in 1985 while working for the power company. He was a linemen at the time and was up working when they turned on the wrong lines. My sister was 2 and I was 5. My mother worked for the same power company and was pressured into not doing anything in fear of losing her job, resulting in her being jobless and trying to raise 2 small children. Is there anyway I can bypass the statute of limitations to sue the power company today?

[antrc170]

The SOL for a wrongful death in MD is three years, long since expired. Your mother had the opportunity to file the suit at the time of death. Fearing the loss of a job is not enough reason to toll the statute. As a minor child at the time you could have made an argument that you had cause to bring the suit due to parental failure (very hard to do), but you would have needed to file that suit within three years of your 18th birthday which my math tells me has long since passed. I know of nothing else to toll the statute this late.

The SOL is an affirmative defense so you can file a suit anyway and it is up to the power company to raise the issue. The other problem with your case is that it happened 26 years ago. Finding witnesses or evidence to support your claim will be difficult to say the least. After so many years a persons memory of the events can easily be challenged by the defense to create confusion. Although a civil case is by the perponderance of the evidence it is still your job to show that the power company was negligent in their actions.

I'm sorry your family has had to go through this, but it is far to late to seek action now.

[Mr. Knowitall]

There's also the issue of whether the injury and death would fall under the exclusive remedy of worker's compensation, as is very likely the case. We have no indication as of yet that there may be a possible third party defendant.

The statute of limitations is an affirmative defense, but no lawyer is going to knowingly file a case more than twenty years after the statute ran without an expectation of being slapped down and possibly sanctioned by the court. The power company is not going to miss that one.