Indiana Patient's Compensation Fund v. Brown

For reasons explained in my dissent in McCabe v. Comm’r, Ind. Dep’t of Ins., I think the majority wrongly holds in this case that attorney fees are a separate element of recovery under the Adult Wrongful Death Statute.

In this case, the Court goes beyond the McCabe holding, declaring that a surviving parent may recover for “loss of services” that the deceased adult child would have rendered.

The common law rule, still a principle of background law, held that there was not a legal obligation for a child to support his or her parent. Haskamp v. Swenger, 85 Ind.App. 255, 153 N.E. 815 (1926).…