[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/blog\/defendants-attempting-to-delay-wrongful-death-cases\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/blog\/defendants-attempting-to-delay-wrongful-death-cases\/","headline":"Defendants Attempting to Delay Wrongful Death Cases","name":"Defendants Attempting to Delay Wrongful Death Cases","description":"When a defendant or insurance company is facing a wrongful death lawsuit, they often try to delay the case as much as possible.\u00a0 From their perspective, every day that they don\u2019t have to pay anything is a win.\u00a0 So even when the wrongful death case is strong and the decedent\u2019s family has every right to… Continue reading Defendants Attempting to Delay Wrongful Death Cases<\/span><\/a>","datePublished":"2022-07-26","dateModified":"2026-04-17","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/blog\/author\/butler\/#Person","name":"Jeb Butler","url":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/blog\/author\/butler\/","identifier":9,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f5a02bc71d91db5fc8645f129c4424ce6ef7af7e24fe54f4a85315a9dd28f317?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f5a02bc71d91db5fc8645f129c4424ce6ef7af7e24fe54f4a85315a9dd28f317?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Butler Kahn","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Butler-Law-Firm-Logo.png","url":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Butler-Law-Firm-Logo.png","width":210,"height":93}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ga-wrongful-death-2nd.jpg","url":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ga-wrongful-death-2nd.jpg","height":496,"width":640},"url":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/blog\/defendants-attempting-to-delay-wrongful-death-cases\/","video":{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"VideoObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mh_pub8TbuM#VideoObject","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mh_pub8TbuM","name":"Defendants' Attempts to Delay Wrongful Death Cases while Estate is being Set Up","description":"Attorney Jeb Butler is here to talk about moving wrongful death cases forward as fast as possible.\n\n*****************************************************\nSHARE THIS VIDEO: https:\/\/youtu.be\/Mh_pub8TbuM\n*****************************************************\n__________________________________________\nWe Have Four Locations to Serve You \nAtlanta, GA \nButler Law Firm \n10 Lenox Pointe \nAtlanta, GA 30324 \nhttps:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/ \n--------\nLawrenceville, GA \nButler Law Firm \n154 Stone Mountain Street, Suite 250\nLawrenceville, GA 30045 \nhttps:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/lawrenceville-...\n-------- \nRoswell, GA \nButler Law Firm \n1255 Canton Street, Suite E \nRoswell, GA 30075 \nhttps:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/roswell-injury...\n-------- \nJonesboro, GA \nButler Law Firm \n21 Lee Street, Suite 250 \nJonesboro, GA 30236 \nhttps:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/jonesboro-inju...\n------- \n\u25ba I'm Jeb Butler at the Butler Law Firm. And today we'll talk about moving wrongful death cases forward as fast as possible in a court system that is typically quite slow. One of the delaying tactics that we've seen defendants try to use in our wrongful death cases recently is to stall the entire case while we wait on the probate court to appoint an administrator of the decedents' estate. So in Georgia, as we've discussed in other videos, when someone dies and you bring a lawsuit about it, there are typically two kinds of claims that you bring. One is a wrongful death claim and one is the estate claim. Now, the wrongful death claim is brought by certain people that are specified under Georgia law. And there's usually no problem in going ahead and filing that and getting it moving pretty quickly. The estate claim is a little bit more cumbersome because you have to set up an estate in the probate court of Georgia for the person who died.\n\u25ba And then once an estate is set up, an administrator, typically a family member of the person who died, has to be appointed. That administrator is the person who's in charge of the estate and the one who has the right to bring the lawsuit on the estate's behalf. But sometimes probate courts, particularly in the metropolitan Atlanta area are a little bit slow. So at our firm at least, we don't always like to wait until the probate process is fully complete before filing the death case. Sometimes defendants will use that as an excuse to try to slow everything down. We've seen a couple motions about that in the not too distant past. And we'll go over some of that today. What often happens is that the defendant will seek a stay, which just is a fancy legal order for meaning a pause in the case until the administrator gets appointed.\n\u25ba Now, there's no practical reason for that. It shouldn't happen. It just slows things down, but often delays the goal of defendants. So they file these motions, seeking to stay the case or pause the case until the administrator is appointed by the probate court. We've had to deal with this a couple times, once in the federal court, in the Northern District of Georgia in a truck case, and we were able to argue it, and we won the motion. What we're looking at here is the district court's order. And as you can see, this is a motion to stay filed by the defendants. So the defendant truck company is trying to pause the case while we set up the estate. And this is what the court says. The court says, \"Based on the representations of counsel for the plaintiff,\" that's our law firm about how we're going to have the right person appointed, \"the court denies defendant's motion to stay.\" So this is a good thing.\n\u25ba It means we got to go forward in this case. We didn't have to wait at least on that, but it's also in a good clean written order that we can cite in the future. We can say to a future judge, when defendants try this delay tactic, \"Hey, look at this order from the US District Court denying such a request.\" So it has some presidential value. You can use it again in the future, basically. This was in federal court. We've seen it also in state court. This is one from the State Court of Gwinnett County. And it was similar sort of substantively, but the form was different. Instead of asking for a stay, the defendants asked for our whole case to get dismissed because the administrator hadn't been appointed yet. You can see that this is a ruling on our motion to dismiss.\n\nJOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA\nFACEBOOK LINK: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/butlerfirmllc\nTWITTER LINK: https:\/\/twitter.com\/Butler_Firm\nINSTAGRAM LINK: https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/butler_law_firm\/\nLINKEDIN LINK: https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/butlerfirm\/\n\nSEE OUR REVIEWS \nGOOGLE REVIEWS: https:\/\/search.google.com\/local\/reviews?placeid=ChIJoR24iRoG9YgRSH8GpDMLiMQ\nFACEBOOK REVIEWS: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/butlerfirmllc\/reviews\/\n\nCheck out our previous video: https:\/\/youtu.be\/a_CJag1Amt0","thumbnailUrl":["https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/Mh_pub8TbuM\/default.jpg","https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/Mh_pub8TbuM\/mqdefault.jpg","https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/Mh_pub8TbuM\/hqdefault.jpg","https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/Mh_pub8TbuM\/sddefault.jpg","https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/Mh_pub8TbuM\/maxresdefault.jpg"],"uploadDate":"2022-07-27T19:36:23+00:00","duration":"PT4M49S","embedUrl":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Mh_pub8TbuM","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCeMYGr94Sf4LpYwIcO3P2Qw#Organization","url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCeMYGr94Sf4LpYwIcO3P2Qw","name":"Butler Kahn","description":"We help people and families.\n\nOur firm specializes in personal injury and wrongful death cases. We are based in Atlanta, Georgia. We handle cases across Georgia and, for certain types of cases, all across the country.\n\nTOP-QUALITY LEGAL WORK. We do the work that lots of law firms skip. We track down witnesses, dig into the evidence, and prepare intensely for every deposition, trial, and hearing. We take a small number of cases so that we can devote our full attention to the clients we represent.\n\nPERSONAL SERVICE. If you hire us, you get us. You won't get blocked by a receptionist or leave unreturned messages. If you want to speak with your lawyer, you can.\n\nDOING WHAT WE SAY WE'LL DO. Some law firms make big promises at the beginning, then don\u2019t follow through. We shoot straight \u2013 when we tell you something about your case, good or bad, we mean it. No fake promises.\n\nButler Kahn\n10 Lenox Pointe\nAtlanta, GA 30324\n678-940-1444\n","logo":{"url":"https:\/\/yt3.ggpht.com\/NTOsbNEALVOnRbUCg7jUzYGcC4kNKsUTEVHm5TtiTQdLlfFKksLTnmiZG_t6zDG_e4ygtnva=s800-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj","width":800,"height":800,"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mh_pub8TbuM#VideoObject_publisher_logo_ImageObject"}},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","@id":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mh_pub8TbuM#VideoObject_potentialAction","target":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Mh_pub8TbuM&t={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required 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\u201cstay\u201d \u2013 that is, a pause \u2013 in the case while the family and the probate courts set up the decedent\u2019s estate.\u00a0 We think that\u2019s a needless delay, but defendants often try it anyway.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how it works.\ufeffIn Georgia, when a family brings a lawsuit based on the death of a family member, the family typically brings two claims: a wrongful death claim and an estate claim.\u00a0 We\u2019ve written about the difference between wrongful death and estate claims elsewhere on our site, but for purposes of this article, what matters is the \u201cclaimant\u201d \u2013 i.e., the person authorized to bring the claim.\u00a0 In the wrongful death claim, the proper claimant is set out by law under O.C.G.A. \u00a7 51-4-2, and the identity of the claimant is usually pretty clear.\u00a0 In the estate claim, the proper claimant is the \u201cAdministrator\u201d of the estate, who is usually a family member of the decedent.\u00a0 That\u2019s clear enough, but the issue is that an Administrator has to be appointed by a probate court, and since probate courts don\u2019t always move quickly, the appointment can take some time.We don\u2019t like to wait.\u00a0 Civil litigation takes long enough, so we try to minimize the delays for our clients.\u00a0 But if a probate court is taking a long time to appoint the Administrator of an estate, there isn\u2019t much we can do to expedite that process.\u00a0 So we will sometimes file the civil lawsuit, including wrongful death claims and claims on behalf of the estate, while our client\u2019s appointment as the Administrator is still underway.\u00a0 In other words, we don\u2019t always wait for the probate process to be complete before filing our lawsuit against the defendant.Some defendants try to use that as an excuse to slow the lawsuit down.\u00a0 Often, defendants will file motions asking the court in which the lawsuit is pending to \u201cstay\u201d (i.e., pause) the lawsuit while the probate court finishes appointing our client as the Administrator.\u00a0 That\u2019s really a needless delay because in the great majority of cases, the appointment of the Administrator is not controversial, it just takes some time.\u00a0 There\u2019s no reason that we can\u2019t push the lawsuit forward while we\u2019re waiting.\u00a0 So when defendants or insurance companies try to \u201cstay\u201d our wrongful death cases to wait on the probate court, we oppose that motion.We usually win.\u00a0 For example, here is an order from a federal district court in the Northern District of Georgia denying the defendant\u2019s attempt to \u201cstay\u201d a wrongful death trucking case that our firm handled.\u00a0 Getting a written order like that \u2013 i.e., a written order refusing to \u201cstay\u201d the case \u2013 is good for two reasons.\u00a0 First, it allows our client\u2019s case to move forward.\u00a0 Second, we now have a written order that we can use the next time a defendant or insurer tries to \u201cstay\u201d a wrongful death case.\u00a0 We can submit the order and show the court that other courts regularly deny these defense motions.Recently, we saw a twist on this defense tactic.\u00a0 One defendant tried to get our client\u2019s case dismissed because the estate had not been finalized when we filed the case.\u00a0 We opposed that motion, obviously.\u00a0 We won and we got another strong written order, this time from the State Court of Gwinnett County, rejecting this defense tactic.\u00a0 Again, that\u2019s good for two reasons \u2013 it was good for our clients in that case, and it will be good for our future clients if another defendant tries this tactic.Litigation isn\u2019t a game.\u00a0 There are real people, real families, and real losses involved.\u00a0 We don\u2019t think the litigation process should take any longer than it absolutely has to.\u00a0 It takes long enough already.\u00a0 If someone else out there is facing these same \u201cdelay, delay, delay\u201d tactics from defendants or insurance companies in Georgia wrongful death cases, we hope these orders will be helpful."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Blog","item":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/blog\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Defendants Attempting to Delay Wrongful Death Cases","item":"https:\/\/butlerfirm.com\/blog\/defendants-attempting-to-delay-wrongful-death-cases\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]