Hochul vetoes Grieving Families Act after 11th hour push for changes to bill to reform NY wrongful death law

ALBANY — Gov. Hochul is taking heat for vetoing a long-sought piece of legislation that would have overhauled the state’s 175-year-old wrongful death laws.

Supporters of the Grieving Families Act, which would have expanded New York’s wrongful death law to cover emotional anguish and allow a much broader group of people to bring claims when a loved one dies, say the governor missed the mark by not signing the measure into law.

“Gov. Hochul has turned her back on the people who deserve the opportunity to seek justice the most,” said Tom Valet, president of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and partner at Rappaport, Glass, Levine & Zullo.

“Until it is changed, the wrongful death statute will continue to deliver uneven justice for communities of color, women, children, seniors, people with disabilities, and those with low incomes,” Valet said.

The veto came late Monday, hours after Hochul publicly raised concerns about the bill and the manner in which it was passed by the Legislature in an 11th hour op-ed published by the Daily News.

Lawmakers accused the governor of failing to negotiate in good faith and noted that the bill had been debated in Albany for years after first being introduced nearly three decades ago. It was approved with bipartisan support in both houses last June.

“With the resources of the entire state government at her disposal, it’s inexplicable the governor failed to review the bill during this seven-month period,” said Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-Manhattan) and Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein (D-Brooklyn) said in a joint statement.

Hoylman-Sigal and Weinstein accused Hochul of waiting “until the eleventh hour to raise the need for further statistical analysis, which would seem to be a tactic to gut the legislation or delay its implementation indefinitely.”

The bill would have allowed families to seek compensation for emotional anguish — an expansion of the current law, which allows compensation for the lost earning potential of a loved one who dies.

It also would have extended the two-year statute of limitations to bring a wrongful-death lawsuit by 18 months and broadened the traditional definition of family members eligible to recover damages to “surviving close family members, which may include, but are not limited to, spouse or domestic partner, issue [children], parents, grandparents, step-parents and siblings.”

Hochul, in her veto message and op-ed, argued that the bill was rushed through the Legislature last year and said more time is needed to analyze how changes to the law would affect insurance rates and impact small businesses, families, doctors, nurses and hospitals.

Insurance companies and hospitals lobbied against the bill. The Medical Society of the State of New York applauded Hochul for declining to sign the measure.

“MSSNY stands ready to work with the Governor and the Legislature on revised legislation that would ensure legal remedies for grieving families, but at the same time protect the ability of New York’s physicians, hospitals, and other health care workers to continue to deliver the care our patients expect and deserve,” Parag Mehta, the group’s president, said in a statement.

Relatives of some of the 10 people killed last year in a Buffalo mass shooting, however, were among those who voiced frustration with Hochul’s decision to veto the bill.

“It’s a slap in the face,” Garnell Whitfield, a retired Buffalo Fire Commissioner whose mother was among the 10 people killed in the attack, told ABC News on Tuesday. “Obviously my mom was 86 years old, but what makes her life any less valuable than someone who’s working?”