What it does
The Fatal Accidents Act 1934 creates a civil remedy where a person’s death is caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default that would have entitled the deceased to sue if death had not ensued. The Act converts that personal cause of action into a cause of action for the benefit of specified relatives and other beneficiaries, by making the person who would have been liable if death had not occurred liable to an action for damages notwithstanding the death (s 4). The action is to be brought, subject to statutory rules, by and in the name of the executor or administrator of the deceased, for the benefit of members of the deceased’s family (s 5). The Act permits an action against the Crown in the same circumstances as against a subject and states that the Act binds the Crown in right of Tasmania and, so far as Parliament’s power permits, in other capacities (s 2).
Mechanically the Act does the following: it defines who counts as a member of the family for benefit purposes (s 3(1)); it limits the number of separate actions for the same subject-matter to one (s 6(1)); it requires the plaintiff to deliver full particulars of the persons for whose benefit the action is brought together with the statement of claim (s 7); it allows persons beneficially interested to bring the action in specified circumstances where there is no executor or the executor does not act within six months (s 8); it permits a defendant advised to pay money into court to do so as a single sum without specifying shares (s 9); it sets rules for assessment of damages, including explicit exclusions from reckoning certain receipts (s 10(1)), and lists recoverable items such as funeral and medical expenses, provided those expenses have in fact been incurred by the beneficiaries (s 10(2)). The Act’s schedule is repealed (Schedule 1 repealed).
The Act does not, within its text, prescribe criminal penalties or administrative sanctions. Its enforcement mechanism is civil litigation for damages under the terms and conditions the Act sets (see s 4, s 5, s 6, s 9, s 10). The Act also contains several amendment and repeal annotations embedded in the text, which the statute itself records.