Have you lost a close family member in a fatal accident in San Antonio, Texas? Call George Salinas Injury Lawyers at (210) 225-0909. You may have the right to seek compensation for your devastating loss, and our San Antonio wrongful death lawyers can help you fight to get the substantial award you deserve.
At George Salinas Injury Lawyers, we’re award-winning Texas litigators with a demonstrated ability to help families navigate these difficult times in their lives, handling their personal injury claims including San Antonio car accident cases, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, workplace accidents, catastrophic injuries, pedestrian accidents, and more. Collectively, we have 110+ years of experience and have won hundreds of millions of dollars for clients like you – including some of the top settlements in the state in recent history.
Contact us to discover how we can help you fight back after your loved one’s wrongful death. We offer a free consultation, so call our law office in San Antonio, TX, to get started today.
How Our Salinas Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help After a Fatal Accident in San Antonio, TX
It’s never easy to lose someone you love. It can be even more difficult when their death is sudden, unexpected, and avoidable. While money will not bring them back, it can help to provide some closure, help you move forward, and alleviate the financial burdens you’re likely to feel.
You don’t have to navigate an intimidating legal claim on your own. That’s where our San Antonio personal injury lawyers can help.
We’re ready to take on negligent parties, insurance companies, hospitals, and anyone else who tries to stand between you and the money you rightfully deserve.
A wrongful death attorney at George Salinas Injury Lawyer will provide invaluable assistance at every step of your wrongful death claim. Take this time to grieve your unimaginable loss while our top-rated Texas trial lawyers:
- Carefully investigate the details surrounding your loved one’s fatal accident, to determine if you have legal grounds to sue and legal standing (or legal authority) to make a claim.
- Determine who can be held legally responsible for your tragic loss and identify all potential defendants who could be responsible for providing compensation for the death and resulting losses.
- Gather critical pieces of evidence that can be used to build and support a strong claim for damages, such as police reports and witness testimony about the incident that led to the death, as well as expert testimony about the extent of lifetime financial losses.
- Handle settlement negotiations with insurance companies and other parties on your family’s behalf if the goal is to resolve the wrongful death claim outside of court.
- Prepare to litigate your wrongful death lawsuit at trial, if necessary by pursuing a civil case and proving in court that the defendant should be held responsible for the death under the Texas wrongful death statute found in Texas Code Section 71.002.
At George Salinas Injury Lawyers, we don’t want you to worry about the out-of-pocket cost of a lawyer. We work on a contingency fee basis. You pay absolutely nothing unless we settle or win your wrongful death case. No win, no fee. Guaranteed.
Call our San Antonio law office to discuss the specific details of your wrongful death case with a member of our skilled team today.
What is a Wrongful Death Claim?
A wrongful death claim is a specific type of tort claim that you can pursue if a close relative was killed as a direct result of someone’s carelessness or negligence.
Texas Code Section 71.002 establishes the rules for this cause of action. As the statute says “An action for actual damages arising from an injury that causes an individual’s death may be brought if liability exists under this section.”
Liability exists under that section if an individual, or that individual’s agent, causes a death as a result of a “wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default.
Tort claims are civil claims, which means that the appropriate remedy is monetary. If someone caused a death to occur under the circumstances laid out in Texas Code Section 71.002, that defendant can be made to pay monetary compensation for economic and non-financial loss. It will be up to those who lost loved ones to make their case, demonstrate that the defendant was at fault, and show the extent of their loss.
A wrongful death claim can be filed in a court of law and it will be up to the plaintiff to prove their case. Plaintiffs do not have to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, as they would in a criminal case. The standard is preponderance of the evidence, so they must show that more likely than not the defendant is at fault for the death.
Many civil claims, including wrongful death cases, are resolved through out-of-court settlements. This is not true of all claims, but it is often possible to get an offer of compensation from a defendant or their insurer since those responsible for a death often don’t want to go to court and take the risk of a large verdict against them.
Wrongful death claims can be complicated. Because a death can cause a lifetime of devastating loss, the damages can be substantial. George Salinas Injury Lawyer has experience with these types of claims and can help you use the civil justice system to recover the money you need and deserve to rebuild when your loved one is taken from you.
We Handle All Types of Wrongful Death Cases in San Antonio
Wrongful death is a death arising from a party’s “wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default.”
In other words, a wrongful death occurs when someone is negligent, engages in criminal activity, or acts with the intent to harm.
At George Salinas Injury Lawyers, we represent clients who have lost family members as a result of:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Uber and Lyft accidents
- Bus accidents
- Construction accidents
- Workplace accidents
- Slip and fall accidents
- Catastrophic injuries, including amputation, burns, spinal cord injury, and traumatic brain injury
- Accidents involving defective products
- Dog bites
- Nursing home abuse
- Medical malpractice
You don’t have to go through this difficult time by yourself. Give yourself time to grieve your loss by turning to our San Antonio truck accident attorneys for help. We’re always here to take your call – 24/7/365.
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Lawsuit in Texas?
Not just anyone can decide to file a lawsuit after losing someone they love in a fatal accident in San Antonio.
Texas law establishes strict rules for who can file a wrongful death claim. The relevant rules are found in Texas Code Section 71.004. This statute states that “An action to recover damages as provided by this subchapter is for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased.”
The law also specifies that these individuals can either bring an action together or one or more of those individuals can file a claim for the benefit of all. This means that an individual lawsuit could be filed by:
- The deceased’s surviving spouse
- The deceased’s children
- The deceased’s parents
Or the spouse, children, and parents could all come together to make one joint claim.
In some cases, none of those individuals will make a claim. When this happens, it doesn’t mean the defendant escapes responsibility for their actions.
If a claim isn’t brought by one of these three parties within three months of a victim’s wrongful death, the personal representative of the victim’s estate can file a claim. Texas Code Section 71.004 states that “If none of the individuals entitled to bring an action have begun the action within three calendar months after the death of the injured individual, his executor or administrator shall bring and prosecute the action unless requested not to by all those individuals.”
Any damages recovered are awarded to the victim’s estate and distributed to beneficiaries pursuant to the victim’s will. Texas probate law will apply instead if they died intestate (without a will).
The executor or administrator is the person who is in charge of managing or overseeing the estate of the deceased person as it goes through probate. That individual could be appointed by a probate court or may have been chosen by the deceased and named in a last will and testament.
If the executor or estate administrator is the one to bring the claim, then any damages recovered are awarded to the victim’s estate and distributed to beneficiaries pursuant to the victim’s will. If the deceased person died with no will — which is called dying intestate — then Texas laws for intestate succession will apply.
How Are Damages Distributed in a Wrongful Death Lawsuit?
In a Texas wrongful death lawsuit, the spouse, children, or parents of the deceased have the right to pursue a wrongful death claim under Texas Code Section 71.004. If they do not choose to act, the executor or estate administrator can make a claim.
When damages are awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit, the process of distributing the assets varies depending on how the case was resolved. If the lawsuit settled, then any involved plaintiffs — including the spouse, children, or parents — can come to an agreement and decide for themselves how to divide up any money received. If the claim is not settled and is resolved in court, the jury will determine how compensation is divided.
Damages are not always distributed evenly if the jury decides on how to divide up the money, and when a case settles, those involved do not have to share the money evenly. An experienced wrongful death accident lawyer can help potential plaintiffs to understand what their share of a damage award should be and can assist in negotiating a fair outcome or fighting for appropriate compensation in court.
What Damages Can Be Awarded in a Texas Wrongful Death Lawsuit?
Wrongful death lawsuits exist to compensate surviving spouses, parents, and/or children for the sudden loss of a family member.
So, damages awarded in a wrongful death lawsuit are different from those awarded in other types of personal injury lawsuits.
Recoverable damages include money for:
- Lost financial support, income, earnings, and benefits
- Loss of inheritance
- Loss of the victim’s household services
- Loss of the victim’s care, support, guidance, companionship, and love
- Funeral and burial expenses
Families can also recover compensation for the emotional distress they experience as a direct result of their loved one’s tragic death.
Additional Damages May Be Available Through a Survival Action
In Texas, additional compensation may be available if the victim survived their fatal injuries for a period of time after they got hurt.
In these situations, the personal representative of the victim’s estate can file a survival action, which seeks compensation for the time in which the victim survived their injuries.
Damages awarded in a survival action can include money for lost wages, medical bills, and the victim’s personal pain and suffering.
These damages would be awarded to the estate and then distributed to beneficiaries.
How Does Shared Responsibility Affect Wrongful Death Lawsuits in San Antonio, TX?
Under Texas state law, shared responsibility for an accident will affect related personal injury claims for damages. Traditionally, a victim’s shared fault affects their claim for damages. When a victim dies, their shared fault is transferred to their family’s wrongful death action.
Texas is a modified comparative fault state with a 51 percent bar.
Simply put, sharing most of the blame bars a financial recovery, while sharing some of the blame limits how much money can be awarded.
Let’s say you’ve lost a family member in a fatal car accident in San Antonio. Your wrongful death case is worth $500,000. After a careful investigation, it’s determined that your family member shares 20 percent of the responsibility for their fatal accident. When shared fault is factored into the equation, your financial award will be reduced by 20 percent to $400,000.
It’s important to be ready for insurance companies and at-fault parties to point fingers and try to shift blame in their direction. Your family member isn’t around to defend themselves. They’re not here to tell their side of the story. So, it’s important to have someone who can stand up and fight to protect their good name.
Our slip and fall attorneys in San Antonio will anticipate these tactics and work to disprove or discredit these claims of shared fault. We’ll demand hard evidence to back up these claims while working to uncover evidence of our own that limits how much (if any) fault is assigned to your late family member.
What’s the Statute of Limitations for Texas Wrongful Death Lawsuits?
You will have two years from the date of your loved one’s tragic death to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
Note that this may or may not be the same date as the accident that inflicted their ultimately-fatal injuries.
Once the statute of limitations expires, you will forfeit the opportunity to demand financial justice for your devastating loss.
Two years might seem like a lot of time, but it’ll go by before you know it. Calling our motorcycle accident law firm in San Antonio after your loss can help to protect your rights and increase the odds of a meaningful financial victory. After all, the sooner we can begin to investigate and build your case, the more likely it is that you’ll be awarded the full value of your wrongful death claim.
Schedule a Free Consultation With an Experienced San Antonio Wrongful Death Lawyer
Have you lost your spouse, a parent, or a child in a recent accident in San Antonio, Texas? Don’t let those responsible for your excruciatingly painful loss off the hook without consequence. Fight back and hold them legally and financially accountable for the harm and suffering they’ve caused.
At George Salinas Injury Lawyers, our San Antonio wrongful death lawyers have 110+ years of combined experience handling complex cases like yours. We’re ready to invest our experience, resources, and in-depth knowledge of Texas wrongful death law behind your case. We’re ready to take on at-fault parties and work to secure a meaningful financial award on your behalf.
Our legal team is here to help you get through this incredibly difficult season of your life. To get started, simply give our law office in San Antonio, TX, a call or connect with us online. We offer a free consultation, so contact us today to begin.