In the event of a traffic accident resulting in the death of a driver, the family of the deceased is entitled to claim compensation.
In the event of a person’s death in a traffic accident, monetary compensation may be awarded to the victim’s family for mental anguish. The court may award monetary compensation and determine the amount after assessing the facts of the case, i.e., the financial and social situation of the parties, the degree of kinship, the age of the victim, etc.
The aim of the legislator is to compensate the moral damage suffered by the family of the deceased as a result of the wrongful act, so that they may enjoy fair and adequate relief and consolation.
The Civil Code does not define the term “family of the victim” because the legislator did not want to bindingly define the limits of an institution which, by its very nature, is necessarily affected by social changes over the years.
However, according to the true meaning of this provision, which derives from the purpose for which it was enacted, the victim’s family includes the closest and most closely related relatives of the deceased, who have suffered emotionally from his loss and whose emotional pain this provision aims to alleviate, regardless of whether they lived with him or separately.
In this sense, the victim’s family includes the spouse, ascendants (grandparents), descendants and distant descendants (grandchildren, great-grandchildren), siblings, first-degree relatives by marriage, such as father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, as well as the children of one spouse born from another marriage, who, in the event of the death of their step-parent, are entitled to monetary compensation for emotional distress.
In order for monetary compensation to be awarded to the entitled persons, it is necessary to prove the existence of feelings of love and affection between them and the deceased when he was alive, the absence of which may lead to the exclusion of all or some of these persons from the award of monetary compensation.
Finally, the claim of each family member for monetary compensation for mental anguish is independent of the member’s status as an heir of the victim.
