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Washington's law allowing wrongful death suits does not allow recovery of parental consortium for the death of an adult child who is not actively supporting the parent. Efforts to fix this loophole which allows "cheap kills" of such, usually young and promising, adult children have fallen victim to the State's desire to limit liability for wrongful deaths it causes. Under current Washington law the only recovery that can be had for an adult child is the calculated loss of accumulations that would have earned and saved in the childs lifetime. This is true even if the child was living in the parent's home. Obviously proving what the value of an 18 year old high school senior's estate might have been in 60 years is speculative at best. The parents can recover nothing for the loss of the child's love, affection, companionship, support and comfort they would otherwise have enjoyed for the rest of their life and in their golden years. Creative ways of avoiding the tragic consequence of this law have met with limited success. As a consequence of this rule the damages recoverable for the death of young adults in this state often do not justify the expense of proving liability especially against a well funded adversary who cares more about holding onto its money than seeing justice is done.
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