After revisions were made to the previous version of the bill, Gov. Kathy Hochul has rejected the Grieving Families Act for a third time.
The nixed legislation — which initially received bipartisan support in the state Assembly and Senate — proposed to allow the families of wrongful-death victims to receive compensation for their emotional anguish. New York is one of only two states that has not enacted this law.
When she vetoed the bill in 2023, Ms. Hochul cited concern in her memo about the potential “significant unintended consequences,” such as increased insurance premiums and a financial blow to health care facilities, specifically public hospitals that serve disadvantaged communities. The governor ended 2024 with the same concern for consumers.
“Families who have suffered through the wrongful death of a loved one deserve the ability to be made whole and to hold the wrongdoer responsible for appropriate monetary damages,” said Sen. Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk), who co-sponsored the bill. “As the legislation has now passed in both chambers of the state Legislature by wide margins and with bipartisan support for three consecutive years, it is now time to override the governor’s veto, bring our wrongful death statute into the 21st century and make this important legislation law.”
New York’s current wrongful death law is over 175 years old and focuses solely on the economic — not emotional — loss experienced by families, and any damages awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit can be collected only by a child, parent, spouse or personal representative for the estate of the deceased.
The law excludes recovery by extended family members, such as siblings, cousins and grandparents, unless they were named as a guardian or the victim’s personal representative. Under the Grieving Families Act, these “surviving family members” would also have become eligible to receive compensation for their emotional anguish.
Lawmakers stated in the justification portion of the bill that the current law “impacts most harshly on children, seniors, women and people of color; people who often have no income or significantly less income, or have been traditionally undervalued in our society.”
The 2023 version recognized that many different types of families live in New York, such as step-families, unmarried couples, foster children and so on, and entitled them to damage recovery as well.
Legislators further narrowed the definition and limited “surviving close family members” in 2024, which includes “distributees” such as spouses, domestic partners, parents and legal guardians of minors. Deciding which close family members are or are not entitled to damages would be based on specific circumstances of the person’s relationship with the decedent. They also proposed to change the statute of limitations to three years from the date of the decedent’s death, from the current two years.
This version of the bill shortened the proposed retroactive effect of legislation by three years. It now only applies to causes of action that accrue on or after Jan. 1, 2021. Prior versions had a lookback window to July 1, 2018.
Nancy DiMonte, the mother of Joelle DiMonte, who survived the fatal 2015 limo crash in Cutchogue that killed four young women, said this third veto shows that those who would benefit from this legislation are being “ignored” and “disrespected.”
“Once again, the veto of the Grieving Families Act leaves New York as a state that is seriously lagging and stagnant in legislation,” said Ms. DiMonte. “The state claims that progressiveness is to be withheld, yet clearly the veto of this highly sought out legislation that would help so many was overshadowed by irresponsible spending and wasted legislation — without this bill, victims and families are sorely ignored and lack closure.”
In September 2018, Alisa and John McMorris of Wading River lost their 12-year-old son Andrew, who was killed by a drunk driver while hiking with his Boy Scout troop. After learning of the second veto in December 2023, the McMorrises had one question for the governor and state legislators: “What is your child worth?”
The parents have been advocating for the passage of the Grieving Families Act for six years and Ms. McMorris said they were “dramatically disappointed” to hear of Ms. Hochul’s third veto.
“Andrew’s life mattered, and it is horrific that his life, in the eyes of New York State, holds no value,” Ms. McMorris said. “We came to [Gov. Hochul] as loved ones left behind to mourn and suffer in silence as the state has determined the lives of our children, grandchildren, partners and parents are worthless in the eyes of the law — it’s a pain no dollar amount could ever truly subside, yet for many of us, it is the only way for us to achieve any kind of justice for the death of a loved one.”