Coffey Modica founding partner, Michael Coffey, authored an insightful opinion piece on New York’s Grieving Families Act veto and its implications for wrongful death claims, published in The Albany Times Union, the state’s leading newspaper for policymakers.
By Michael Coffey | December 24, 2025
As the saying goes, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. New Yorkers need only look to the Grieving Families Act as a prime example.
The bill (S6636/A6698) reached Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for the fourth consecutive year in December. And just as in years past, it was vetoed for failing to address the severe unintended consequences if would present for the insurance industry, as well as for every consumer and small business across New York.
Gov. Hochul has detailed that concern each time lawmakers advance the legislation. The Assembly and Senate have never addressed the question of who would pick up the tab for the significantly increased insurance premiums and financial stress on homeowners, motorists, medical professionals and others.
One of the main problems comes from the bill’s attempts to inflate victim compensation beyond what is reasonable, by adding non- economic damages like grief and pain. At the same time, the law expands the right to seek out monetary damages, giving standing to an assortment of relations: spouses, domestic partners, children, foster children, parents, step-parents, grandparents, step-grandparents, step-grandchildren, siblings, stepchildren, stepsiblings and even those in loco parentis, acting as a parent to the deceased.
These major changes to the rules of engagement around New York’s wrongful death legal system will likely lead to mass confusion as competing claims for damages are filed.
This liability expansion, and any surge in lawsuits that follows, will lead to billions in new legal spending and will likely cause wider instability. That’s what happened in California, where the courts and insurers were flooded with claims, merited or not.
In the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires, state and municipal leaders are being sued in a federal class-action lawsuit, with more than 3,000 claimants, for their own mismanagement and bureaucratic misdeeds. Let’s think about that: The government-run California FAIR Plan, which does not have enough funds to pay claims, saw a 52% increase in policies from September 2024 to September 2025. So what will they do? Pass costs onto the taxpayers and ratepayers.
The insurance system is one of pooled assets and pools of risk. Not everyone is going to have a claim in a particular year. The financial actuaries analyze the data and can usually assess what the likelihood is that a business, a hospital, a doctor or an Uber driver will have a claim.
As the risks become too unstable to properly predict, some insurers may decide that New York is simply a market too unpredictable to properly underwrite policies. That would leave fewer coverage options available and higher costs for those that remain. It could also send experienced physicians to neighbor states, leaving our already short-staffed health care system in the lurch.
Under this legislation, the risks would be more severe, the legal bills would be higher and the number of relations who stand to gain litigation rights may double. Expanding who can sue for wrongful death and recoverable damages available would lead to sky-high liability costs. That would certainly cause an increase in insurance costs across the state.
New York hasn’t updated its wrongful-death laws in 187 years, so there is little argument that an adjustment is overdue. While this measure was presented with good intentions, recklessly moving forward without fully considering the impact it would have on small businesses, doctors and hospitals, homeowners, taxi and rideshare drivers and others will never result in realistic, meaningful reforms, just a rush to the courthouse.
To make repeated attempts to overhaul the state’s wrongful death statute, while only listening to one side of the debate, simply makes no sense at all.
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