Wrongful death statute should be liberally read.
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Against the recommendations of the Missouri Supreme Court, a trial court erroneously applied a “hyper-technical” reading of the wrongful death statute, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, held last week. Concluding that the legislature created the statute to compensate a designated number of relatives for the loss of a loved one, the Southern District reversed the findings of a Duncan County trial court, which held that the plaintiff’s suit exceeded the three-year statute of limitations and did not qualify for the one-year savings limitation applicable to a plaintiff who brought a wrongful death suit and ended it without prejudice. “By the trial court limiting to the first person to file suit the right to pursue a remedy statutorily granted to all beneficiaries within a certain class - even after a non-suit by the first to file,… |