Texas Wrongful Death Lawyers

A single death usually gives rise to two separate claims under Texas law, and they compensate different losses.

The wrongful death claim belongs to the family. It compensates the surviving spouse, children, and parents for what the death cost them: lost financial support, lost companionship, and their own mental anguish.

The survival claim belongs to the estate. Under Section 71.021, the claim the deceased person could have brought survives in favor of their estate, covering what they endured between the injury and death, including conscious pain and suffering, the medical bills, and funeral expenses.^[2]

Brought together, the two claims account for the full loss, the family's and the decedent's. Handling them as one coordinated case is how the complete measure of harm reaches the court.

A wrongful death claim can arise from almost any fatal act of negligence. The cases we see most often in Texas include:

Fatal vehicle crashes. Car, motorcycle, and pedestrian collisions, including the fatal car crashes that take so many lives on Texas roads each year.

Truck and commercial vehicle wrecks. Collisions with 18-wheelers and commercial fleets, handled by our Texas truck accident lawyers, where carrier liability and federal records come into play.

Medical negligence. Fatal misdiagnosis, surgical, and hospital errors pursued through our Texas medical malpractice lawyers, under the state's special malpractice rules.

Workplace and industrial deaths. Construction, oilfield, and plant fatalities, common in Texas, often involving employers, contractors, and equipment makers.

Nursing home neglect. Preventable deaths from neglect and abuse in long-term care, the focus of our nursing home neglect lawyers.

Defective products and dangerous property. Fatalities caused by unsafe products, equipment failures, and hazardous premises.

A wrongful death claim stands on the same ground the deceased's own injury claim would have. Texas allows it only when the death was caused by a wrongful act, neglect, or default that would have entitled the person to sue had they lived.

In practice that means proving the same elements as any injury case:

• Duty. The at-fault party owed the deceased a duty of reasonable care.
• Breach. They failed to meet it, through negligence or a wrongful act.
• Causation. That failure caused the death.
• Damages. The death produced the losses the family and estate are claiming.

The proof looks different depending on how the death occurred. A fatal crash turns on the reconstruction, the vehicle data, and the other driver's conduct. A workplace death turns on the safety rules and the parties responsible for the site. A death from medical care runs through the same standard-of-care and causation analysis, and the same Chapter 74 expert report, as any Texas malpractice claim.

Because the person who lived through the events cannot testify, the case is built from the physical evidence, the records, and the experts who can reconstruct what happened. Preserving that evidence early is often what makes the difference, and it is the first thing we move to do.

When a wrongful death case succeeds, the recovery is not simply split evenly. Under Section 71.010, the jury sets the total damages and then divides them among the surviving spouse, children, and parents in shares proportionate to each one's loss.^[4]

That allocation reflects the actual relationships. A spouse who lost a partner and a primary income, a young child who lost a parent's support and guidance, and an adult child or parent with a different kind of loss may each receive different shares. The jury weighs what the death cost each person individually, rather than treating the family as a single unit.

Two features of Texas law protect that recovery. The wrongful death damages belong to the family rather than the estate, so they do not pass through a will and are out of reach of the deceased's creditors. And only the beneficiaries alive when the verdict is rendered share in the award.

The survival claim runs on a separate track. Those damages, the pain and the expenses the deceased incurred before death, belong to the estate and pass under the will or the laws of inheritance. Keeping the two recoveries straight, and presenting each person's loss clearly, is part of seeing that a family's recovery is divided fairly.

A Texas wrongful death claim generally must be filed within two years of the date of death. When a government entity is involved, a much shorter written notice deadline applies, often six months or less. Missing either one can end the claim before it is heard.

Beyond protecting the deadline, the work of a wrongful death lawyer is to build the full picture of the loss. That means investigating how the death happened, preserving evidence before it is gone, retaining the economists and other experts who document the family's lifetime loss, and identifying every party and policy that can answer for the harm.

It also means giving the family honest advice about timing. A carrier will sometimes move to resolve a fatal claim quickly, before the full scope of the loss is documented. A wrongful death case is valued across the family's lifetime, and that value takes time to establish properly.

The hardest and most important part of these cases is documenting a loss that has no invoice. Putting a number to the devastating, tragic, preventable loss of someone you loved. We do not rush a wrongful death case to settle. A fatal claim is valued across a family's lifetime, and to hold the responsible to account requires taking the time to build the whole picture of what a family was robbed of.

A free consultation is a place to get clear answers, and there is no fee unless we recover for you.