Michigan did not extend wrongful death filing deadlines in the latest updates, so the core rule is still 3 years from the crash date in most vehicle death cases. If your brother died last year, you may still have time.

The next question you should be asking is: who has authority to file, and is it a wrongful death claim, a survival claim, or both?

In Michigan, family members usually do not file the lawsuit in their own names first. The case is typically brought by the personal representative of the estate under Michigan's Wrongful Death Act. If no one has been appointed yet, that often starts in Ingham County Probate Court if your brother lived in Lansing.

A Michigan wrongful death case can include money for:

• Funeral and burial costs
• Medical bills tied to the final injury
• Lost wages and financial support
• Loss of society and companionship for close family
• The deceased person's conscious pain and suffering before death through a related survival action

That survival-action piece matters if he lived for hours, days, or months after the crash.

If the wreck involved a summer highway trip on I-96, I-69, or US-127, a delivery van, rideshare vehicle, or company truck, there may be a commercial policy in play. For a gig driver, that can matter even more because there is usually no workers' comp buffer.

Fault also matters. Michigan uses modified comparative fault. If your brother was found more than 50% at fault, the claim can be barred. If he was 50% or less at fault, damages may be reduced but not automatically lost.

If he died long after the crash, the date of the accident still often drives the deadline, so do not assume the clock started at death.