Nothing here undoes what happened. What a claim can do is hold the responsible party to account and lift the financial weight off a family that did not ask for any of it. Jose Robles Jr is an Air Force combat veteran who handles wrongful death claims for families across Richardson and Dallas County.
A Richardson wrongful death lawyer helps a surviving husband or wife, children or parents pursue whoever was responsible for a death. Texas limits who may bring the claim to those three groups, and the deadline usually runs two years from the date of death. A second, separate claim belongs to the estate. Free consultation, no fee unless we win.
Only a surviving husband or wife, the children, and the parents. Texas is narrow here, and families are regularly shocked by who is left out.
A surviving husband or wife
Can bring the claim, either alone or for the whole family.
Children
Can bring it, including adult children and legally adopted children.
Parents
Can bring it, including the parents of a grown child.
Brothers and sisters
Cannot. Texas courts have held this consistently, however close the relationship was. It is the part families are most often shocked by.
The estate's representative
If none of the family above has filed within three months of the death, the person handling the estate is expected to bring it unless the family asks them not to.
The exclusion of brothers and sisters causes the most pain in a first meeting. Somebody who was the closest person in their sibling's life still has no right to bring this claim. Where that sibling is also handling the estate, there may be a role through the estate's separate claim, but that is a different claim with different rules about what it covers.
The three month point matters more than it looks. If nobody in the family has filed by then, the person handling the estate is expected to step in unless the family asks them not to.
One compensates the family for what they lost. The other compensates the estate for what the person went through before they died. A Texas family can usually pursue both.
The family's claim
Belongs to the surviving husband or wife, the children and the parents. It covers what they lost: companionship, the guidance a parent gives, financial support, and what the family would have inherited.
The estate's claim
Belongs to the estate rather than to any individual. It covers what the person who died went through before dying, including pain they were aware of, their medical bills and the funeral costs.
This is not a technicality. The estate's claim flows according to the will or, if there is none, the rules about who inherits, rather than going straight to the family members named above. Cases are sometimes set up badly because nobody sorted this out at the beginning, and fixing it afterwards is far harder than getting it right at the start.
Whether the person was conscious before they died, and for how long, is often the most contested part. It is proven with medical records, the paramedics' documentation and sometimes witness accounts, which is another reason the early record matters so much.
Vehicle crashes account for most of them, along with unsafe property, workplace incidents and, in some cases, medical care that fell below standard.
The road pattern explains a lot of it. US-75 runs the length of the city and carries heavy commuter traffic at speed. The President George Bush Turnpike crosses the north with fast-changing conditions at the ramps. Fatal collisions on both tend to involve either speed or a vehicle far heavier than the one it hit, which is why commercial vehicle cases make up a disproportionate share.
Where the death happened changes more than which court hears it. A crash involving a city vehicle or on public land can bring in a public body and its much shorter written notice deadlines. A crash involving a company vehicle brings a different set of records into play, some of which are only kept for months. And because Richardson straddles a county line, the side of that line the incident falls on decides where the case would be filed.
Whatever the cause, the claim rests on showing that somebody was negligent: that they owed a duty of care, failed it, and that the failure caused the death. That proof is built from records rather than from how badly the family is hurting.
Where the person survived for a time, their injuries and the care they received become part of the record too. Following a death, families often want accountability more than anything else, and attorneys handling these cases should say plainly which parts of that a civil claim can deliver and which it cannot.
Generally two years from the date of the death, but the deadlines that actually end cases arrive sooner, and one can land within months.
Two years is the outer boundary. Inside it sit deadlines that quietly expire first: written notice when a public body is involved, sometimes only a few months, and the retention windows on the evidence itself.
There is no gentle way to say the next part. The period when a family is least able to think about legal deadlines is exactly the period when evidence is most perishable. Nobody expects a grieving family to run an investigation, which is the reason to let somebody else start one early, before any decision about filing anything has been made.
Families want different things from this process. Some want security for children. Some want an answer nobody has given them. Some want the responsible party held to account. Wanting justice and wanting compensation are not in conflict, and one claim can serve both.
Deadlines change with the facts. Confirm yours with a lawyer rather than counting from a web page.
You talk to the lawyer handling your case, not a rotating queue of case managers. In a claim like this that is not a convenience, it is the difference between being informed and being processed.
Jose Robles Jr is a decorated Air Force combat veteran with a 95% success rate, $5M+ recovered, 1,000+ cases handled, and a 4.9 star Google rating.
Before becoming a personal injury lawyer, Jose "Joe" Robles Jr served nearly 15 years as an Air Force Military Police officer, including four combat tours in the Middle East, and earned his law degree from Texas A&M University School of Law. He then spent four years at Bailey & Galyen, rising to Managing Attorney of the Pre-Litigation Personal Injury Department, before founding this firm.
Four combat tours mean sudden death is not an abstraction to him, and families are not handed a script. The firm also works in Spanish, and the first conversation costs nothing.
We also handle Richardson car accident claims and truck accident claims. For everything the firm does here, see our Richardson personal injury page.
Only a surviving husband or wife, the children, and the parents of the person who died. Any one of them can bring it on behalf of them all. Brothers and sisters cannot, no matter how close they were, which is the part that surprises and hurts families most. If none of those family members has filed within three months of the death, the person handling the estate is expected to bring the claim unless the family asks them not to.
There is no typical figure, and any firm quoting one before knowing the facts is advertising rather than analysing. What decides it is specific to the family: the age and earnings of the person who died, whether children were depending on them, how close the relationships were, what they went through before dying, and how much insurance or how many assets exist to pay. A company defendant with real cover and an uninsured individual produce completely different outcomes from identical facts.
It turns on evidence and insurance far more than on how tragic the loss is. Cases where responsibility is documented, such as a commercial vehicle crash with electronic records or an unsafe property with an inspection history, resolve much more predictably than cases resting on competing accounts. The second question is whether the responsible party can actually pay. A strong case against someone with no assets and minimum cover can still end disappointingly, which is why available insurance gets investigated first.
Texas allows two separate claims after a death, and they are valued differently and often paid from different places. The family's claim compensates the husband or wife, children and parents for their own loss: companionship, guidance, financial support and lost inheritance. The estate's claim covers what the person who died endured before dying, including any pain they were conscious of, their medical bills and the funeral. Sorting out which is which at the start matters, because untangling it later is much harder.
Generally two years, running from the date of the death rather than the date of the injury. Much shorter written notice deadlines apply if a city, a school district or another public body is involved, sometimes only a few months, and those can pass while a family is still arranging a funeral. Evidence runs on its own clock too, particularly in vehicle cases where electronic records may only be kept for months.
Most of these claims resolve without a trial, though preparing as though there will be one is what produces a fair settlement. Families are usually most afraid of being made to relive the loss in public. In practice the bulk of the work is documents: records, employment history, expert analysis and negotiation. If the case does go further, you will know well in advance and will not walk into it unprepared.
Nothing upfront. These cases run on a contingency fee, which means a share of any recovery and nothing at all if the case does not succeed. The agreement has to be in writing and has to state exactly how the fee is worked out. The first conversation costs nothing, and if there is no claim worth bringing we will tell you that rather than sign you up.
No fee unless we win. Call us now or schedule your free consultation online.