The sudden death of a family member can be emotionally devastating, especially when it happens because of someone else's negligence or wrongful actions. While no legal claim can replace a loved one, a California wrongful death lawsuit can help surviving family members pursue financial compensation and hold the responsible party accountable. This legal action may ease the financial burden caused by medical bills, funeral expenses, lost income, and the loss of companionship.
Since 1996, Burg & Brock has handled more than 20,000 personal injury and wrongful death cases from ten California offices. Our team of experienced attorneys has spent nearly three decades trying fatal trucking, aviation, and product defect cases and have recovered over $1 billion in verdicts and settlements. Call our wrongful death lawyers for a free consultation today.
This article explores what a wrongful death means under California law, steps to take when proving a wrongful death claim, and California’s statute of limitations for wrongful death cases.
A wrongful death occurs under California law when a person dies because of someone else’s negligence or a wrongful act. In 2023, 4,061 people died on California roads, according to the state Office of Traffic Safety. Behind each number is a family facing a funeral, a mortgage, and no answers. The wrongful death statute sits in Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60. It creates a claim that belongs to surviving family members, not to the deceased person. That distinction shapes every procedural step that follows.
Think of it this way. If your father had survived, he could have sued the driver who hit him. Because he did not survive, the law lets you sue for what his death cost you. A wrongful death claim compensates the family. A separate survival action, covered below, compensates his estate for what he lost before he died.
Every California wrongful death case rests on four building blocks. A missing block sinks the file. The first is duty. You must show the defendant owed your loved one a reasonable standard of care. Drivers owe other road users safe driving. Doctors owe patients the skill of a competent physician. Property owners owe visitors reasonably safe premises.
The second element is breach, meaning the defendant fell short through negligence or an intentional act. A trucking company that skipped brake inspections breached its duty. So did the drunk driver who ran the light. Negligence is determined by asking what a reasonably careful person would have done. Juries answer that question using California’s civil jury instructions.
Causation is the third element, and defense lawyers attack it hardest. You must link the defendant’s breach to the death itself, not merely to the accident. Suppose a person caused a collision, but your mother died three weeks later of an unrelated stroke. The causal chain breaks. Causation in medical malpractice cases is harder still, because the patient was already sick. Your attorney must show the negligence killed your family member, not the underlying illness.
Damages form the fourth element. Wrongful death damages require evidence that your loved one’s death produced measurable losses. Grief and emotional distress alone, without a qualifying relationship, will not carry a claim.
Evidence is the foundation of these cases, but it can disappear quickly after a fatal accident. Skid marks fade, and trucking companies often overwrite dash camera footage on a rolling schedule. At the same time, the collision report, 911 audio, the coroner's report, and data from the vehicle's event data recorder help piece together what happened and can play a crucial role in proving a wrongful death claim. In a premises case, maintenance logs and prior incident reports show whether the owner knew about the hazard.
We send preservation letters within days of being retained, because a letter sent after deletion is worthless. Medical records are often the most important evidence in health care wrongful death cases. Request the complete medical chart, nursing notes, and billing records, as billing data can sometimes reveal treatments or procedures that are not documented elsewhere. Employment records and tax returns are also essential because they help establish the income and financial support your household lost as a result of your loved one's death.
Expert witnesses help turn complex evidence into clear, credible proof. An accident reconstruction expert can determine a vehicle's speed and the angle of impact by analyzing crash damage. An independent physician explains the appropriate standard of medical care and identifies where mistakes may have occurred. A forensic economist calculates the financial losses, including future earnings, and converts them into their present cash value. In trucking cases, a trucking safety expert reviews hours-of-service logs to determine whether the driver or company violated federal safety regulations.
Cameron Yadidi Brock, our founding attorney, puts it this way. “Families think the fight is about what a life is worth. It is not. The fight is about whether the defendant’s records survive long enough for a jury to see them. That is why we move on evidence in week one.”
California wrongful death lawsuits follow a structured legal process with specific steps and deadlines. Understanding how the case progresses helps explain why even urgent claims can take 18 months or longer to resolve.
Your attorney files a complaint in the superior court where the defendant lives or where the incident happened. A fatal crash on the 405 usually means Los Angeles County Superior Court. The complaint names the plaintiffs, identifies the defendants, states the facts, and lists the causes of action. It is then served on each defendant with a summons.
Public entities come with an extra step. If a city bus or county hospital is involved, you must present a written government claim before you file suit. Government Code section 911.2 gives you six months from the date of death. Miss it, and the courthouse door closes.
Discovery is the formal exchange of information, and most wrongful death cases are won here. Interrogatories require answers under oath. Requests for production force disclosure of maintenance files, training records, and internal emails. Requests for admission lock in facts so you need not prove them at trial. Depositions put witnesses on the record, and a company must produce a witness qualified to speak for it. Discovery in a serious case often runs a year, and most cases settle once it reveals what a jury would see.
Only a small share of civil cases reach a jury. Trial begins with jury selection, then opening statements, the plaintiff’s evidence, the defense case, and closing arguments. A California civil jury needs nine of twelve votes, not a unanimous verdict.
The jury decides liability first, then assigns a figure to each damages category. It may also apportion fault, because California follows pure comparative negligence. If the jury finds your loved one twenty percent responsible for his or her injuries, the award drops accordingly. Outcomes include a defense verdict, a full plaintiff verdict, or a reduced award.
California law recognizes a closed list of people who may bring a wrongful death action. The decedent’s surviving spouse or registered domestic partner comes first, alongside the decedent’s children. If one of the decedent's children died before the decedent, that child's children may bring the claim by right of representation.
If no spouse, domestic partner, or descendant survives, the right passes to whoever would inherit the decedent’s property under intestate succession. That usually means the decedent’s parents, and sometimes siblings. Section 377.60 also allows a putative spouse to file. A putative spouse is someone who genuinely believed the marriage was valid.
A final category covers people who were financially dependent on the decedent. A stepchild or parent who relied on the decedent for half their support may qualify. A long-term partner who never registered a domestic partnership generally does not. Many wrongful death claims fail at this threshold, so confirm your right to seek compensation early.
California treats wrongful death as a single, indivisible action. Every eligible heir must join the same lawsuit. You cannot have three separate cases over one death. The heir who files must name the others, either as plaintiffs or as nominal defendants.
Disputes among claimants are common in blended families. An estranged adult child may surface after the funeral. A separated spouse may claim priority over a partner of fifteen years. The jury returns one lump sum, and the judge allocates it by each person’s actual relationship and dependency. A financially dependent teenager typically receives more than a self-sufficient adult who rarely called.
The survival claim runs on a separate track. Only the decedent’s personal representative may bring it, or a successor in interest if no estate exists. Who files, and in what capacity, is the kind of detail that quietly ends cases. An experienced wrongful death attorney maps it before anything is filed.
Under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, you generally have two years from the date of death to file. The clock runs from the decedent’s death, not from the date of injury. If your husband was hurt in a car accident in March and died in January, your two years begin in January.
Missing the deadline is close to fatal. The defendant moves to dismiss, the court agrees, and no evidence revives the case. Insurers track the date as closely as you do.
Several situations change the timeline. Medical malpractice runs on section 340.5. You get one year from discovering the negligence, or three years from the death, whichever comes first. That year is short, and records requests often consume two months of it.
Claims against a government entity require the six-month written claim under section 911.2. A late claim application may still be available within one year. You must show the delay resulted from mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect. Minors receive additional protection, since the period is generally tolled until they turn eighteen. The discovery rule can also delay accrual where the true cause of death was concealed.
There is no formula and no statutory chart. A jury weighs the decedent’s age, health, earnings, work life expectancy, and the closeness of each relationship. A forty-year-old electrician supporting three children produces a very different number than a retiree with no dependents.
One change matters enormously in 2026. Senate Bill 447 let estates recover a decedent’s pre-death pain and suffering in a survival action. That provision expired on January 1, 2026, and section 377.34 reverted to its earlier form. For survival actions filed on or after that date, the decedent’s own suffering is no longer compensable. A narrow exception survives for elder abuse under Welfare and Institutions Code section 15657. Many pages still describe the old rule, so verify anything written before 2026.
Medical malpractice carries its own ceiling. The MICRA cap on non-economic damages in wrongful death cases is $650,000 as of January 1, 2026. Assembly Bill 35 raises it by $50,000 each year until it reaches $1 million in 2033. Economic damages in medical malpractice cases remain uncapped.
Two claims arise from one death, and they compensate different losses. The table below shows how they differ.
| Feature | Wrongful death claim (CCP 377.60) | Survival action (CCP 377.30) |
|---|---|---|
| Who brings it | Surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, or other eligible heirs | The decedent’s personal representative or successor in interest |
| Economic damages | Lost financial support, lost household services, funeral and burial expenses | Medical bills and lost wages incurred between injury and the victim’s death |
| Non-economic damages | Loss of love, companionship, comfort, affection, society, and moral support | Not recoverable for actions filed on or after January 1, 2026 |
| Punitive damages | Not available | Available where the defendant acted with malice, oppression, or fraud |
Economic damages are the calculable part. An economist takes the decedent’s earnings and projects them across the remaining work life. Benefits are added, personal consumption is subtracted, and the total is reduced to present cash value. Household services are valued too, which surprises families. Childcare, cooking, home repair, and elder care all carry market rates. A stay-at-home parent’s contribution frequently exceeds $40,000 a year. Funeral expenses, burial expenses, and the final medical bills complete the category.
Non-economic damages resist arithmetic, and they are usually the larger figure. No receipt exists for a daughter losing her mother. Jurors are asked to use their judgment and common experience. California awards can be substantial. In Asam v. Bhandal Bros. Trucking, a Los Angeles jury awarded more than $150 million to two surviving children. Their parents and brother burned to death after the family SUV became trapped under a big rig parked on Interstate 210. The truck carried no lights or reflectors, as Fox News reported. Most cases settle for far less, but the verdict shows what juries do with indefensible conduct.
These procedural rules are not technicalities, because each one can end a valid case before a jury hears it. Evidence proving negligence has a short shelf life. The deadline to file suit is shorter than most families realize. Nothing undoes such a loss, but a wrongful death suit lets you seek justice and steady your family’s finances.
At Burg & Brock, we work on contingency, so you pay nothing unless we recover for you. We advance every investigation and expert cost, and we deal with the coroner’s office, the adjusters, and the defense lawyers directly. Call us for a free consultation, and we will send an investigator to preserve the evidence in your case this week.
Below are common questions about a wrongful death claim in California and their respective answers.
You likely have a claim if another party’s negligence or intentional act caused the death. You must also fall within the group that section 377.60 permits to file. Test it against the four elements. Did the defendant owe a duty, breach it, cause the death, and produce measurable losses? A fatal crash caused by a distracted driver clears that bar easily. A death following an accepted but aggressive treatment may not.
Two years from the date of death in most cases. Medical malpractice is one year from discovery, or three years from death, whichever comes first. Claims involving a public agency require a written government claim within six months. The shortest deadline can expire before the estate is even opened, so treat the date of death as day one.
The surviving spouse, registered domestic partner, children, and the children of deceased children come first. If none exist, the right passes through intestate succession, usually to the decedent’s parents. A putative spouse, stepchildren, and dependent parents may also qualify. Everyone eligible must join one action rather than filing separately.
Funeral and burial expenses, loss of financial support, lost household services, and the loss of love, companionship, and moral support. A companion survival action recovers medical expenses and lost wages incurred before the victim’s death. It can also recover punitive damages where the conduct was malicious. The wrongful death claim cannot include the decedent’s own pain before his or her own death.
Your attorney investigates, preserves evidence, and identifies every defendant, including employers liable for an employee. If a public entity is involved, the government claim goes first. Then comes the complaint, filed in the correct superior court and served on each defendant. Discovery follows, then mediation, then trial if the defense will not offer a fair settlement. Expect twelve to twenty-four months for a case that resolves before trial.
Legal disclaimer: This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Burg & Brock. California wrongful death law changes, and every outcome depends on the specific facts. Consult a licensed California attorney about your situation.
Cameron Brock is a recognized personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles with extensive experience and success representing individuals and families in catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases.
Cameron’s established track record of helping those who have been harmed by wrongful conduct, violations of safety rules, and defective products has focused on claims involving automotive product defect, tire product defect, commercial truck accidents, trash truck accidents, airplane and helicopter crashes, train disaster, government liability for dangerous condition of public property, and general negligence.
Read more about Cameron BrockWe turn your pain into payouts. No stress, no upfront fees, just real results when you need them most.
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