Vaccine injury death claims: the $250,000 cap and who wins them

The Vaccine Act pays a fixed death benefit of $250,000 to the estate (42 U.S.C. § 300aa-15(a)(2)), a figure set in 1986 and never indexed. Additional amounts can be awarded for expenses and for the period the person survived after the injury, which is why some death awards exceed the cap, but the median compensated death award in this registry is $235K.

Who wins a death claim

The gap is not about sympathy. Adult death claims are mostly influenza-vaccine cases in which Guillain-Barré syndrome or another Table injury preceded death, so the presumption of causation applies and the case settles (80% of 236 decided adult flu-vaccine death claims were compensated). Infant death claims are usually sudden unexplained deaths after a routine well-baby visit, where no Table injury is involved and the petitioner must prove that the vaccines, rather than the many recognised risk factors for sudden infant death, caused it. Since the Federal Circuit's 2019 decision in Boatmon v. HHS rejected the leading theory linking vaccines to sudden infant death, those claims have rarely succeeded.

What the estate has to file

A death claim must be filed within 24 months of the death and within 48 months of the first symptom of the injury that caused it, a shorter window than the 36 months for injury claims. The petition is brought by the estate's legal representative, and the same Table and Althen rules apply. Attorneys' fees are paid by the program regardless of outcome.

Related: Death cases breakdown · All death cases · Compensation amounts