21-3A-10. Survivorship of liability for installment payments--Wrongful death action--Qualifying survivor defined. In all cases covered by this chapter in which future damages are payable in periodic installments, the liability for payment of any installments for medical or other costs of health care or noneconomic loss not yet due at the death of a person entitled to receive these benefits terminates upon the death of that person. The liability for payment of any other installments or portions thereof not yet due at the death of the person entitled to receive them likewise terminates except as provided herein.
If, in an action for wrongful death, a judgment for periodic installments provides payments to more than one person entitled to receive benefits for losses that do not terminate under this section and one or more but fewer than all of them die, the surviving beneficiaries succeed to the shares of the deceased beneficiaries. The surviving beneficiaries are entitled to shares proportionate to their shares in the periodic installments not yet paid, but they are not entitled to receive payments beyond the respective periods specified for them in the judgment.
If, in an action other than one for wrongful death, a judgment for periodic installments is entered and a person entitled to receive benefits for losses that do not terminate under this section under the judgment dies and is survived by one or more qualifying survivors, any periodic installments not yet due at the death shall be shared equitably by those survivors. Amounts due each survivor may not exceed the survivor's economic loss resulting from the death.
Qualifying survivor means a person who, had the death been caused under circumstances giving rise to a cause of action for wrongful death, would have qualified as a beneficiary at the time of the death according to the law that would be applied in an action for wrongful death by the jurisdiction under which the issue of liability was resolved in entering the judgment for periodic installments.
Source: SL 1986, ch 163, § 10.
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