Maryland Wrongful Death Damages in 2024: Caps, Apportionment, and the Cap-Date Rule
No family calls us asking what a death is "worth." They call because the mortgage is still due, the kids are still in school, and the person who held it all together is gone. Part of our job is explaining, honestly, how Maryland law measures that loss — including the caps the jury will never be told about. Here is where the numbers stand in 2024.
Two claims, not one
When negligence kills someone in Maryland, the law recognizes two separate actions:
- The wrongful death claim belongs to the family — primarily the spouse, parents, and children — for their losses: the destroyed relationship, lost care and companionship, mental anguish, and the economic support the decedent would have provided.
- The survival claim belongs to the estate, for what the decedent suffered between injury and death — conscious pain and suffering, medical expenses, funeral costs.
Each claim carries its own noneconomic damages cap. That structural point is often worth more than any single number below.
The 2024 numbers
Maryland's general cap on noneconomic damages (Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 11-108) started at $500,000 for causes of action arising on or after October 1, 1994 and rises $15,000 every October 1. The cap that applies is fixed by the date the cause of action arose — for a death case, the date of the fatal injury — not the date of filing or trial. In a wrongful death action with two or more beneficiaries, the family's collective cap is 150% of the base figure.
| Date of fatal injury | General cap (§ 11-108) | Wrongful death, 2+ beneficiaries (150%) |
|---|---|---|
| Oct. 1, 2022 – Sep. 30, 2023 | $920,000 | $1,380,000 |
| Oct. 1, 2023 – Sep. 30, 2024 | $935,000 | $1,402,500 |
| On or after Oct. 1, 2024 | $950,000 | $1,425,000 |
Deaths caused by medical negligence are capped separately — and lower — under Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 3-2A-09, on a calendar-year schedule that also climbs $15,000 annually. For medical injuries occurring in 2024, the med-mal cap is $890,000, rising to 125% of that figure — $1,112,500 — for a wrongful death action with two or more claimants. Critically, the med-mal cap applies in the aggregate to all claims arising from the same medical injury, wrongful death and survival combined.
Economic damages — lost income and support, medical bills, household services — are not capped in either kind of case.
Apportionment: one cap, several grieving people
The wrongful death claim is a single action prosecuted for the benefit of all statutory beneficiaries, and the jury's award is divided among them in the proportions the verdict directs. A capped award is reduced proportionally. This creates a dynamic families should understand early: a spouse, three children, and two dependent parents may all have genuine, compensable losses that collectively far exceed $1,402,500 in a 2024-injury case. Candid conversations about apportionment — before trial, and ideally before settlement — prevent painful surprises inside a grieving family.
The cap-date rule can move real money
Because the general cap resets every October 1, the date of injury can shift a family's ceiling by $15,000 (or $22,500 with the multiplier) depending on which side of October 1 it falls. Nothing can or should be done about when a tragedy happens — but lawyers valuing a case must apply the right year's figure, and adjusters sometimes "mistakenly" use an older, lower one. Check the arithmetic.
What this means for injured people in Maryland
- The jury never hears the cap. Maryland law forbids telling jurors about § 11-108; the court quietly reduces any excess after the verdict. A headline verdict is not the check that arrives.
- Build the uncapped side. Because economic damages are unlimited, proof of lost earnings, benefits, and household services — economists, vocational experts, life-care planners where a survivor was injured too — carries the true value of most death cases.
- Med-mal deaths are doubly constrained. The lower cap plus the aggregate rule makes early, realistic valuation and expert strategy essential in hospital cases.
- Both claims should be evaluated in every death case. The survival claim's separate cap means evidence of the decedent's conscious pain and suffering — often uncomfortable to discuss — has real legal significance.
Caps are a policy choice by the General Assembly, and reasonable people fight about them every session in Annapolis. Until the law changes, knowing exactly how the numbers work is part of doing right by the families who bear them.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.