My family member was killed. Can we bring a claim in Texas?

Who is allowed to sue, and who is not

Texas restricts a wrongful death claim to the surviving spouse, the children and the parents of the person who died. Adopted children and adoptive parents are included on the same terms.

Siblings cannot bring the claim. Nor can a grandparent, a fiancé, a long-term partner who never married, or a close friend. This is the part families find hardest to hear, and it is statutory rather than a matter of how close anyone was.

Any one of the eligible family members may file for the benefit of all of them. If none has filed within three months of the death, the personal representative of the estate is required to, unless all the eligible family members ask that it not be brought.

There are two claims, not one

The wrongful death claim belongs to the family, and compensates what the death cost them: lost financial support, lost inheritance, lost companionship and society, and their own mental anguish.

The survival claim belongs to the estate, and carries the claim the person who died would have had themselves. It covers what they went through between injury and death — conscious pain and mental anguish — along with their medical expenses and funeral costs.

They are pleaded together, but they are valued separately and the money is distributed differently. The survival recovery passes through the estate and can be reached by creditors; the wrongful death recovery goes to the family members directly, in shares the jury or the court sets.

Exemplary damages, and the constitutional rule that goes with them

Where the death was caused by gross negligence, Texas allows exemplary damages on clear and convincing evidence. Drunk driving, a carrier that knowingly ran an unsafe truck, and a company that ignored a known hazard are the recurring examples.

The Texas Constitution provides that in a wrongful death action the exemplary damages are not subject to legislative limit, which sets these apart from ordinary injury claims where Chapter 41's formula caps them.

The deadline runs from the death, and the evidence does not wait

Two years from the date of death, which is not always the date of the injury. Where a governmental unit is involved, formal notice is required far sooner, sometimes within six months and under some city charters within ninety days.

As in any serious case, the physical proof has a shorter life than the deadline. Vehicles are released and scrapped, equipment is repaired and put back in service, footage is overwritten, and an autopsy that was never requested cannot be obtained later.

What to do now

Nothing here needs to happen today. Bury your relative first.

When you are able: do not sign anything an insurer sends, and do not give a recorded statement. An early offer in a death case is made before anyone knows what the claim is worth, and a release cannot be undone.

Keep the paperwork — the crash or incident report, the medical records, the bills, the funeral invoice — and write down the names of anyone who saw what happened.

If a governmental body was involved in any way, say so early. Those notice deadlines are short enough to end a claim before a family has finished grieving.

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