April 16, 2015
My father passed away in 2004 from Mesthelioma. He had 6 children from two different women, three each. Unbeknownst to one set of siblings a suit was filed through Weitz & Luxenberg against the US Navy and others. Only one set of siblings are named in the suit and have received and continue to receive large monetary settlements. I contacted Weitz & Luzenberg and they said the case has settled and they cannot add siblings. My question is do the other three siblings have a right to past and future settlements gained from the passing of their father. What type of lawyer should i contact. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
I agree; assuming your father did not have a will, the 3 children who were left out of the estate should petition the Surrogate's court to reopen the decree to have the distribution recalculated to include them. At the time the case was settled, there would have been filed in Surrogate's court (in the county where your father resided) a petition to distribute the settlement monies in his estate, and in that petition all of his children should have been named. It looks like someone withheld information about the three who were left out. You need a wrongful death/estate attorney to handle this.
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