/ Wrongful Death
Wrongful Death Lawyers in Texas
Texas law gives the surviving spouse, children and parents the right to bring a wrongful death claim, and gives the estate a separate survival claim. They are two different actions with two different measures.
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Need answers after losing a family member because of negligence?
/ Who May Bring It
Two Claims, Not One
Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act the surviving spouse, children and parents may bring a claim for their own losses. Siblings may not, and neither may more distant relatives.
The Texas Survival Statute gives the deceased person’s estate a separate claim for what they themselves suffered before death — the pain, the medical expenses, the funeral costs.
The two are usually pursued together, and keeping them straight matters because the beneficiaries and the damages are different.
Spouse, children and parents may bring a claim. Siblings, under Texas law, may not.
/ What Is Recoverable
The Measure of the Loss
For the statutory beneficiaries: lost earning capacity and contributions, lost care, maintenance, counsel and companionship, and mental anguish.
For the estate: the deceased’s own conscious pain and suffering, medical expenses and funeral costs.
Exemplary damages may be available where the death resulted from wilful act or omission or gross negligence.
The wrongful death claim and the estate’s survival claim are two different actions.
/ Timing
The Deadline, and the Exceptions
The general limitations period for wrongful death in Texas is two years from the date of death, with exceptions — including for minor children — that can change that date.
Claims against governmental units carry separate and much shorter notice requirements that are easy to miss.
If you are unsure whether a deadline has passed, ask rather than assume. It costs nothing to find out.
Deadlines for a claim against a governmental unit are much shorter.