Newlywed Dies In Lincolnshire Car Accident One Day After Her Wedding, Potential Wrongful Death Lawsuit?

On the day that a person gets married, he or she is ideally embarking upon a brand new "life" - one that is being lived in perfect harmony with another individual. That day is one of hope and promise for a future in which every successive day brings the couple closer together - until death do they part.

But no one expects that "death" to come as quickly as it did for a Buffalo Grove woman.

On January 12, the 26-year old woman was married to her husband. The following day, she was victimized in a head-on collision in Lake County. Five days after the Lincolnshire car accident, the woman succumbed to her injuries at a Libertyville hospital.

Around 9pm on Friday the 13th, a Honda CRV was spotted by a Lincolnshire police officer traveling north in the southbound lanes of Illinois Highway 21 near Aptakisic Road, which is just west of the Ryerson Conservation Area. The CRV then collided head-on with a Toyota and a Jeep, and four people had to be hospitalized. The 26-year old woman, who was sitting in the front seat of the Toyota when it was struck, was pronounced dead last Wednesday.

Charges are pending against the driver of the CRV. But based on the accounts of the head-on collision, it appears that the widowed husband of the Buffalo Grove woman has a solid case for a wrongful death lawsuit against the CRV driver. Because the husband had married his wife the day before the wreck, it is he who has the standing to file such a suit in Illinois. Had they not been married, the parents of the deceased victim would have been the people allowed to be the plaintiffs in this type of legal action.

A wrongful death lawsuit could allow the husband to collect reimbursement for medical and burial expenses, lost future wages that his bride would have earned, and damages for emotional distress and loss of companionship.