What it means
Attorneys' fees and other expenses of litigation are paid by the personal representative and deducted from the awards to the survivors and the estate in proportion to the amounts awarded to them. Everyone who benefits from the recovery shares its cost pro rata.
One refinement: expenses incurred for the benefit of a particular survivor or the estate are paid from that award alone, not spread across the group.
- Fees and litigation expenses are paid by the personal representative, then deducted from the recoveries.
- The deduction runs in proportion to the amounts awarded to each survivor and to the estate.
- An expense benefiting one particular survivor — or the estate alone — comes out of that award only.
How it plays out
This section keeps the math honest at the end of a wrongful-death case. Once the verdict or settlement is apportioned per §768.22, the fee and every shared cost spread across the lines pro rata — a survivor taking 40% of the recovery bears 40% of the fee. The friction we see is the special-benefit clause: work done for one survivor's individual position, a disputed dependency for instance, belongs on that survivor's tab, and we log it that way from the first day.
