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To recover damages for a person's death in New York State, there are two distinct causes of action: survivorship and wrongful death. While the survivorship cause of action belongs to the estate for the decedent's pain and suffering prior to death, the wrongful death cause of action compensates those statutory distributees who have suffered pecuniary loss as a result of the decedent's death. Consequently, there may be more than one plaintiff in a death case as well as separate statutes of limitations for each cause of action. Due to these distinctions, an attorney must assess each action independently of the other.