Actor Jim Carrey's legal woes have suddenly doubled now that both the mother of his ex-girlfriend and the woman's estranged husband have both filed wrongful death claims, a type of personal-injury claim, against him. Many people may question how this is even possible since the actor's ex-girlfriend actually took her own life. Can someone really be held accountable for the suicide of another? This is what you should know.

You have to prove a direct link between the defendant and the suicide.

In order for someone to legally be held accountable for another person's death, there has to be a direct cause of action (or inaction) on the part of the accused. In other words, what is it that the other person did or didn't do that led to the deceased person's suicide? Was suicide a reasonably foreseeable result of whatever happened?

Because depression and other mental illnesses that can lead to suicide are complex in nature and difficult to predict, even for professionals, it's very rare for someone to be criminally charged for causing a suicide—in those cases, the person accused usually did something proactive to encourage the death. For example, a Massachusetts teen was ordered to stand trial after sending texts actively encouraging her boyfriend to kill himself.

A wrongful-death lawsuit may be your only possibility to get justice.

Because the standard of proof required to win a case in a civil lawsuit is much lower than that of a criminal case, a wrongful-death lawsuit is often the only way that the families of a victim can get justice for their loved one if they really believe that someone else is at fault for the suicide.

Criminal cases have to conclude that the defendant's actions led to the suicide "without a reasonable doubt." Civil cases only have to prove that the defendant's actions more than likely caused the suicide by a preponderance of the evidence. That means that plaintiffs in personal-injury cases like wrongful death only have to show enough evidence to make the defendant appear 51% guilty of causing the suicide in order to win.

It is much harder to hold a private individual liable than a professional.

Even though the family members in the Carrey case blame the actor for their loved one's death, they may have a difficult time proving that he could have predicted or prevented her suicide. An ordinary individual often lacks the necessary insight and knowledge necessary to realize that someone is suicidal. Even if he or she does, it isn't always clear what can be done to assist that person.

On the other hand, if your loved one was under the care of a mental-health professional who knew that he or she suffered from a mental illness and was at high risk of suicide, you may have a viable case against that professional. If your loved one had a previous suicide attempt, his or her mental-health provider should have been alert to the possibility of a subsequent attempt—the risk of an actual suicide increases more than 100 times in the first year after a failed attempt. It's also very unusual for someone who is suicidal not to give out signs that he or she is considering suicide—signs that a competent mental-health professional should have been able to see.

If you believe that your loved one's suicide was the direct result of someone's actions or failure to act, talk to an attorney such as one at Kiernan Personal Injury Attorneys PA about the possibility of a wrongful-death claim today.