Vermont Wrongful Death Settlement Calculator
Estimate a wrongful death settlement under Vermont 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 Vermont 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.
Vermont bars recovery if plaintiff is 51% or more at fault.
12 V.S.A. § 1036·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
The personal representative brings the action, within two years from the discovery of the death; the section sets other periods for some cases, such as when the person liable is out of the State. The court or jury may give just damages for the pecuniary injuries to the spouse and next of kin; for a minor child they also include the loss of love and companionship and the destruction of the parent-child relationship. The amount recovered is for the benefit of the spouse and next of kin. 14 V.S.A. § 1492(a), (b), (c) reads: “The action shall be brought in the name of the personal representative of the deceased person and commenced within two years from the discovery of the death of the person, but if the person against whom the action accrues is out of the State, the action may be commenced within two years after the person comes into the State.” and “The court or jury before whom the issue is tried may give such damages as are just, with reference to the pecuniary injuries resulting from the death, to the spouse and next of kin, as the case may be. In the case where the decedent is a minor child, the term pecuniary injuries shall also include the loss of love and companionship of the child and for destruction of the parent-child relationship in an amount as under all the circumstances of the case, may be just.” and “The amount recovered shall be for the benefit of the spouse and next of kin, as the case may be and shall be distributed by the personal representative as hereinafter provided.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Vermont wrongful death law, and how courts have applied it or divided a recovery is not stated here.
14 V.S.A. § 1492(a), (b), (c)·Last reviewed 2026-10-17
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.
What partial fault costs you in Vermont
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 Vermont 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 Vermont deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Vermont 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.
12 V.S.A. § 512(4)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculator12 V.S.A. § 521·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculator21 V.S.A. 656 generally requires proceedings to begin within 6 months of the injury, subject to the statute's payment and knowledge provisions. Our filing-deadline field counts whole years, so it cannot state a 6-month window, and rounding it up would tell you that you have twice the time you actually do. Ask a Vermont attorney or the Department of Labor about your deadline.
Open the workers compensation calculatorVermont 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 Vermont is one of them.
- Its 2 years to file is the same as the most common deadline in the country, which 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. Vermont'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 Vermont 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
Vermont calculators
Vermont 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.