A Northern Virginia family's guide to cross-jurisdictional wrongful death recovery. I walk readers through Virginia's lex loci delicti choice-of-law rule under McMillan v. McMillan, the four-cluster spectrum of state wrongful death frameworks (pecuniary-only, hard cap, broad recovery, and unique frameworks like Georgia's Full Value of Life doctrine), the Virginia Wrongful Death Act, damages mechanics, beneficiary hierarchy variations, and the statute of limitations traps that can end a case before it starts.
