Nothing brings them back.Justice is still worth fighting for.

A wrongful death case is unlike anything else we handle. It is not about a number — it is about accountability for the crash, the job site failure, or the negligence that took someone who cannot be replaced. We handle these cases personally, at the pace your family can bear, with every conversation in plain English or Spanish.

Texas law provides two paths, and strong cases often use both. The wrongful death claim belongs to the spouse, children, and parents, for their own losses — the support, companionship, and guidance that person provided. The survival claim belongs to the estate, for what your loved one experienced before death. Where the conduct rises to gross negligence, the law also allows exemplary damages designed to punish and deter.

The work is meticulous: preserving evidence before it disappears, retaining the right experts, documenting a lifetime of lost support, and refusing the quick, quiet settlements insurers offer grieving families precisely because they're grieving.

There is no obligation in calling. If we can help, we will tell you how — and if a lawsuit isn't what your family needs, we will tell you that too.

There are two claims, and they compensate different losses

Texas law creates two separate causes of action after a death, and families are often told about only one.

The wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving family and compensates their loss: the financial support and services the person would have provided, the loss of companionship and society, mental anguish, and the inheritance the family would reasonably have expected to receive.

The survival claim belongs to the estate and compensates what the person who died suffered before they died — conscious pain and mental anguish, the medical expenses incurred, and funeral costs. It exists because the injured person's own claim does not disappear at death; it survives to their heirs and estate.

They are brought together, but they are not the same claim, they do not go to the same people, and a settlement has to account for both.

Who may bring it — and who may not

The wrongful death action is for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children and parents of the person who died. Any one of them may file it on behalf of all of them.

The omission surprises people every time: siblings are not statutory beneficiaries in Texas. Neither are grandparents. A brother or sister who was closest to the person, who is handling everything, may still not be able to bring the claim in their own right — though they may serve as the estate's representative for the survival claim. Adopted children are included; stepchildren generally are not unless legally adopted.

The three-month rule

If none of the beneficiaries has started the action within three calendar months of the death, the executor or administrator of the estate is required to bring and prosecute it — unless all of them ask that it not be brought. That is a real deadline inside the larger one, and it matters in families where nobody has taken the lead because everyone assumed someone else would.

The deadline runs from the death

Suit must be filed within two years, and for a wrongful death claim that period runs from the date of death rather than the date of the injury. Where someone was hurt and died weeks or months later, that distinction matters.

And the shorter notice deadlines still apply. If a governmental entity was involved — a city vehicle, a public road, a public hospital — notice may be due in as little as 90 days. That is the deadline that ends these cases before they start.

When the employer is the one at fault

If the death happened at work and the employer carried workers' compensation, the comp system is normally the exclusive remedy. The one exception the statute allows is for gross negligence or an intentional act, and it permits the surviving spouse or heirs of the body to recover exemplary damages — not ordinary compensatory damages.

If the employer was a non-subscriber, the analysis is entirely different and the family may sue for negligence directly, with the employer stripped of its usual defenses. And in either case, a third party whose negligence contributed — a contractor, a property owner, an equipment manufacturer, a driver — can be sued separately. On industrial deaths, that is very often where the real recovery is.