I found an interesting story on the website TMZ which I am embarrassed to comment on or admit that I read. Nonetheless, it turns out that the family of DJ AM (aka Adam Goldstein) has filed a wrongful death suit against several defendants involved in his airplane crash in 2008. You may remember that DJ AM died in August of this year from a drug overdose. The family alleges in the lawsuit that DJ AM became addicted to painkillers following the serious injuries sustained in the airplane crash and ultimately died from this addiction.
Proximate cause is an essential topic in personal injury litigation. It asks if an event is sufficiently related to an injury to be determined as the cause of that injury. For example, we can easily link a broken wrist to a slip and fall. In more complicated scenarios, the classic test is often referred to as “but for”. In this scenario, DJ AM would not have died of an accidental drug overdose but for the negligence of the airline that caused his prior injuries.
I think that it is a stretch to link an accidental overdose of prescription drugs to an accident that occurred almost a year earlier, and the attorneys will have a tough case to present, but kudos to them for thinking outside of the box.