If you have lost a family member or a loved one’s death has occurred due to a wrongful death case, you deserve legal support from a wrongful death lawyer who is ready to represent you and fight for justice. A wrongful death claim in Texas law is separate from any criminal case that may result from this personal injury and is intended to provide the surviving accident victims with compensation for the emotional and mental pain. While we understand that no amount of financial compensation will be able to undo the emotional pain and mental anguish of this situation, it is our hope that we can help you get financial support so that you can focus on getting your life back on track.
Read more below to learn about different examples of wrongful death claims, how to recover damages, how punitive damages are calculated, and how we can help you through this difficult process. Wrongful death cases are stressful, and it is our hope that we can protect you from this stress as you try to regain normalcy in your life. When you are confident that an experienced and qualified wrongful death lawyer is looking out for your best interests, surviving family members can keep their focus on emotional well-being without worrying about your legal rights.
Contact us now to schedule an initial free consultation for sound legal advice on how to file wrongful death claims and a survival claim. During this free consultation, we will be able to discuss whether there is a valid claim, give you insight as to how we can move forward, discuss how our law firm has helped others in wrongful death lawsuits, and determine how we can work together to get you the justice that you deserve while functioning within the Texas wrongful death statute.
Rest assured, we value privacy, and the details of our discussion will be kept private under an attorney-client relationship.
What Is A Wrongful Death?
When someone dies as a result of another individual or party’s gross negligence or malicious act, it is considered a wrongful death. When death is determined to be wrongful death, and due to the responsible parties’ negligence conduct, it allows for a legal option for the surviving spouse or family members to file a lawsuit against the responsible party to recover money for their emotional suffering, funeral expenses, medical bills, and their losses.
There are various ways that we can determine if a death was due to negligent conduct or not. The following are some common examples or requirements to be present in the death to determine it as such:
- The victim was killed intentionally or in a willful act by negligent parties.
- The victim died as a result of medical malpractice.
- The victim was killed in an accident, including a car accident, that resulted from negligence or recklessness of another.
In a wrongful death civil lawsuit, the victim (or, in this case, the survivors of the victim) has to gather evidence, meaning that your Houston wrongful death lawyer will need to go through every detail in the situation to provide ample, compelling proof that there is a necessity for criminal charges. Once our wrongful death law firm can establish that the defendant in our case is, in fact, responsible for the death of your loved one, then we will be able to move forward with the wrongful death suit.
Who Is Able To File A Wrongful Death Lawsuit?
There are strict guidelines in Texas wrongful death law on who is legally able to file a wrongful death lawsuit after the wrongful death of a family member. The list of family members is as follows:
- Spouses
- Surviving adult children or legally adopted children
- Surviving parents or legally adoptive parents
- Personal representatives of the decedent’s estate
If you are uncertain of whether or not you are able to file a wrongful death claim, our Houston wrongful death attorneys will be able to discuss the details of your situation in our initial free consultation and give you a better idea of your legal rights.
Calculating Damages In A Texas Wrongful Death Lawsuit
There are a variety of different factors that we will consider when calculating the amount that we truly believe that you deserve while filing a wrongful death claim. Our competent team of Houston wrongful death lawyers will go through every detail of your situation to compile a comprehensive list of damages, as well as the amounts that you are owed for them. Typically, our wrongful death attorneys will divide damages into economic and non-economic, as well as short-term and long-term.
Economic Damages
Economic damages apply to anything that has an actual, measurable dollar amount associated with them. This includes short-term impacts such as emergency medical expenses, surgeries, burial expenses, and any other expenses that stem from the wrongful death case itself. In addition, they will cover long-term impacts such as the loss of economic stability from the deceased, the cost of care and services needed that the deceased would have otherwise provided, in reasonable probability, and more.
There are many different economic damages that are suffered following wrongful death claims. Our Houston wrongful death lawyers will work through all of the details to ensure that we have addressed and cataloged each impact to ensure that you are compensated for it.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are more complicated than economic damage to calculate, simply because of the abstract nature of the damages themselves. They provide compensation for things like the pain and emotional distress that the victim endured, as well as the emotional impacts that these terrible fatal accidents have had on the surviving family members or the plaintiff. They will also cover punitive damages, the loss of companionship, emotional support, grief, and more.
To determine a dollar amount for non-economic damages, a variety of methods can be employed. The most important thing to know about this process is that your qualified personal injury accident lawyers will diligently determine an understandable and fair amount of money that a judge and jury can see is reasonable.
Texas Wrongful Death Lawyers
Wrongful death victims deserve to be treated with empathy and a qualified attorney who will fight an insurance company or insurance companies to get you the compensation you and your deceased loved one deserve. We also understand that no amount of compensation could salve the pain of losing a beloved to a personal injury accident. However, you deserve justice, and our experienced law firm works extremely hard to help you in the best way possible.
In Houston, TX, our team of competent wrongful death lawyers is well-versed with how to go about filing a wrongful death claim. In a wrongful death case, we understand that you may feel overwhelmed with grief. We also understand that trying to understand each specific detail of your legal rights and what to expect from a complicated wrongful death lawsuit is likely too much to take on, which is why we want you to know that we will handle all that we can to reduce the stress that you must take on.
To learn about how we work with Texas wrongful death cases, as well as how we can start to assist you through this process of filing a wrongful death claim immediately, contact us now to schedule an initial consultation.