Massachusetts Wrongful Death Settlement Calculator
Estimate a wrongful death settlement under Massachusetts law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own comparative fault rule and damages ceilings, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What Massachusetts law does to your claim
Four things in state law shape a wrongful death claim: how long you have to file, who the state's wrongful death statute says brings the action, the state's comparative fault rule, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
Massachusetts bars recovery if plaintiff is 51% or more at fault.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 85·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Massachusetts limits general damages in a medical malpractice case under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 60H, and we hold the figure. It is not on this page because the same section lets a court award more where there is a substantial or permanent loss or impairment of a bodily function, substantial disfigurement, or other special circumstances. A flat ceiling would be the wrong answer for a claim the exception reaches. The figure and the citation are on the source record. Ask a Massachusetts attorney whether that exception reaches your injury.
The executor or administrator recovers the damages in an action of tort. They include the fair monetary value of the decedent to the persons entitled to receive them, funeral and burial expenses, and punitive damages of at least $5,000 where the death was caused by malicious, willful, wanton or reckless conduct or gross negligence. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, § 2 reads: “(1) the fair monetary value of the decedent to the persons entitled to receive the damages recovered, as provided in section one, including but not limited to compensation for the loss of the reasonably expected net income, services, protection, care, assistance, society, companionship, comfort, guidance, counsel, and advice of the decedent to the persons entitled to the damages recovered; (2) the reasonable funeral and burial expenses of the decedent; (3) punitive damages in an amount of not less than five thousand dollars in such case as the decedent's death was caused by the malicious, willful, wanton or reckless conduct of the defendant or by the gross negligence of the defendant;” and “Damages under this section shall be recovered in an action of tort by the executor or administrator of the deceased.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Massachusetts wrongful death law, and how courts have applied it or divided a recovery is not stated here.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, § 2·Last reviewed 2026-10-16
None on record means our verified data holds no figure of this kind for this state. It is not a finding that no limit could apply to your claim.
Held, not published means our research established a limit for this state and we are not putting a figure on it here. The note under each one says which statute it is and what stops us. The amount and its source are on our record.
What partial fault costs you in Massachusetts
The same claim, fracture with surgery, several months of recovery, run through the calculator above four times, with nothing changed but the share of fault assigned to the claimant. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these cases are worth.
One case, run through the calculator above four times with only the claimant's share of fault changed, under Massachusetts law. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. These shares illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your own fault.
Every Massachusetts deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Massachusetts periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 4·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, § 2·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 152, § 41·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the dog bite calculatorMassachusetts against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 24 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar, and Massachusetts is one of them.
- Its 3 years to file is longer than the 2 years that 32 jurisdictions use. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 3 years.
- We have read the official text of 37 jurisdictions' wrongful death statutes. In 20 the personal representative brings the action, in 7 family members or the personal representative may, and the other 10 name a family member, a trustee or a representative, or name who benefits rather than who sues. Massachusetts's is one of the 20 where the personal representative brings it.
- 23 of the 51 jurisdictions limit medical malpractice non-economic damages in our data and Massachusetts is not among them, so an estimate here is not held down by a ceiling we hold.
Comparisons are drawn from the legal levers that actually move a case value, not from closed-case data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology
Massachusetts calculators
Massachusetts Wrongful Death questions
Every document behind our state injury law figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our State Injury Law research sources page.