Lost a Loved One in San Antonio?
After a negligent act takes a loved one, Texas law answers two hard questions before anything else. Who is allowed to bring a claim, and what can the family recover? The answers are narrower than most people expect, and understanding them early spares a grieving family from missteps that complicate an already painful time.
In Bexar County, these questions often surface within days of a fatal crash, long before a family feels ready to think about lawsuits.
A compassionate San Antonio wrongful death lawyer guides a family through those rules while carrying the legal weight for them. These claims follow fatal crashes on I-35 and Loop 1604, along with fatal workplace incidents, unsafe properties, and dog attacks across the city.
No case can undo the loss, but it can hold the responsible party accountable and secure a family’s future.
Call (512) 254-4424 for a free and confidential consultation, available 24/7. You pay nothing unless we win.
Our San Antonio Wrongful Death Lawyer
He is a Lifetime Member of Best Attorneys of America, was named to the Top 100 Civil Plaintiff Attorneys by The National Trial Lawyers, and is admitted to the State Bar of Texas.
Read Matthew Kotzen’s full profile →“I spent years building cases for insurance companies. Now I use that same playbook to make sure they pay what they actually owe.”
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Texas Injury Law at a Glance
| Deadline to file a lawsuit | Two years from the date of death. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003 |
| Who can bring a wrongful death claim | The surviving spouse, children, or parents of the person who died. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.004 |
| Survival claim | Brought by the estate for what the person suffered between injury and death. § 71.021 |
| Punitive (exemplary) damages | Available only on clear and convincing evidence of gross negligence, malice, or fraud. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.003 |
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim Under Texas Law
Texas does not let just anyone file a wrongful death claim. The Texas Wrongful Death Act, found in Chapter 71 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, limits standing to a specific group of close family members, and that limit often surprises the people left behind.
The family relationships that qualify to file are limited to these:
- The surviving spouse of the person who died
- The children of the person who died, including adult and legally adopted children
- The parents of the person who died
Goldberg & Loren helps families understand where they stand under these rules. Siblings cannot bring a Texas wrongful death claim no matter how close they were, which is one of the most painful misunderstandings families face after a death. Grandparents and cousins are excluded as well, even when they helped raise the person who died.
The Spouse, Children, and Parents Rule
The qualifying family members can file together, or one can file on behalf of all. The claim belongs to them personally, compensating for what the loss cost them rather than the estate.
When several relatives qualify, coordinating a single claim keeps their interests aligned and avoids competing lawsuits over the same death, a real risk in blended or extended families.
Texas does not split the recovery in equal thirds by default. A jury or settlement agreement allocates the money by what each person actually lost, so a dependent spouse and young children may receive far more than an adult parent who lived independently.
That allocation is where family members often need the steadiest guidance, because grief and financial decisions are difficult to face at the same time.
The Three-Month Executor Window
If none of the qualifying family members files within three calendar months of the death, the law allows the executor or administrator of the estate to file, unless the family asks them not to. That window exists so a valid claim is not lost while a family grieves.
The three-month window is not the deadline for the case itself, which is a separate and longer period. It is simply the point at which the right to file can shift from the family to the estate.
Families sometimes assume the executor must act, when a surviving spouse or child usually holds the stronger and more personal claim and can move forward directly.
A Separate Survival Claim Through the Estate
Alongside the wrongful death claim runs a separate survival claim under Section 71.021, brought by the estate. It recovers what the person who died could have claimed had they lived, including their own medical bills and the pain they endured before passing.
The two claims move together but compensate different losses, and pursuing both is how a family reaches the full recovery the law allows.
A survival claim can include the conscious pain and suffering between injury and death, along with the medical charges that piled up in those final hours or weeks. When a fatal I-10 collision leaves someone hospitalized for days before they die, those bills belong to the survival claim rather than to the family personally.
The recovery flows into the estate and passes to heirs under the will or, if there is no will, under Texas intestacy rules, where the deceased person’s creditors can reach it first.
Standing for Informal Spouses and Adopted Children
A common belief is that only a couple with a marriage license can recover as spouses. Texas recognizes informal marriage, often called common-law marriage, under the Family Code, and a surviving informal spouse can hold the same standing as any other spouse.
Proving it requires showing the couple agreed to be married, lived together in Texas as spouses, and represented to others that they were married.
Children raise their own questions. Legally adopted children have full standing, and an adult child has the same right as a minor one. Stepchildren who were never legally adopted generally cannot file, even after years in the home, because the statute ties standing to a legal parent-child relationship rather than the depth of the bond.
Damages a Texas Family Can Recover in a Wrongful Death Case
Wrongful death damages are meant to address the enormous hole a death leaves, both financial and personal. Texas recognizes that the loss is far more than a missing paycheck, and the law lets a family pursue the human costs as well. No amount undoes the loss, but the recovery can steady a family’s future.
The damages fall into distinct categories, and building each one takes evidence rather than estimates. A full claim documents what the family lost in money, in support, and in relationship, and it often relies on financial and medical experts to prove the value of a life.
Economic Losses and Lost Earning Capacity
The economic side covers the income the person would have earned, the value of the household services they provided, and the loss of an expected inheritance. It also includes medical and funeral expenses tied to the death.
Projecting a lifetime of lost earnings usually calls for economic experts who can show what the family truly lost over the years ahead.
An economist builds that projection from real numbers, including age, occupation, wage history, and expected working years, then adjusts for raises, benefits, and the value of tasks like childcare and home repair.
A parent who drove children to school and managed a household provided services the family must now pay others to perform, and Texas law counts that lost value.
Lost inheritance covers what the person likely would have saved and passed on had they lived a full life, which matters most when the person who died was young. Funeral costs and the final medical bills round out the economic claim and are usually the easiest figures to document with receipts and statements.
Mental Anguish and Loss of Companionship
Beyond dollars, the law recognizes losses that no receipt can measure. A jury may award mental anguish for the emotional toll of the death, along with the loss of love, comfort, companionship, and the guidance a parent would have provided. Texas trusts jurors to hear how the loss reshaped daily life and assign it a fair value.
Loss of companionship looks at the real relationship between the survivor and the person who died, including their living arrangements, the time they spent together, and the emotional support they exchanged. A surviving spouse describes a partnership built over decades, while a parent speaks to the future they will never share with a child.
Because these losses are personal, the evidence is personal too, drawn from the people who knew the relationship best.
Exemplary Damages and the Gross Negligence Standard
When a death results from gross negligence or a malicious act, Texas allows exemplary damages on top of the compensation above. Section 41.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code requires clear and convincing evidence for them, rather than the usual more-likely-than-not standard that governs the rest of the case.
Drunk driving deaths, willful safety violations, and conduct showing conscious disregard for the lives of others can support this claim.
Texas generally caps exemplary damages under Section 41.008 at the greater of $200,000 or two times the economic damages plus non-economic damages up to $750,000. The purpose is not to repay the family but to punish dangerous conduct and discourage it.
Because the proof standard is so high, a family should never count on exemplary damages as the core of a case, though they can add real weight where the conduct was severe.
Fatal San Antonio Crashes and Other Negligence Deaths
Wrongful death claims in San Antonio grow out of many kinds of negligence. Fatal collisions on the I-35 freight corridor and the high-speed lanes of Loop 1604 are common, and so are deaths from truck crashes, workplace incidents, unsafe properties, and animal attacks. What ties them together is a preventable death caused by someone else’s carelessness.
Each type of case carries its own evidence and its own defendants, from a trucking company to a property owner to an employer. Identifying every responsible party determines the insurance and assets available to the family. A fatal work incident, for instance, may involve a third-party contractor whose insurance sits well beyond the employer’s.
Fatal Truck Crashes on the Bexar County Freight Corridors
San Antonio sits at the crossing of I-35 and I-10, two of the busiest freight routes in the country, and the US-281 and Loop 1604 interchange funnels heavy traffic through the north side day and night. When a fully loaded tractor-trailer strikes a passenger vehicle at highway speed, the people in the smaller vehicle rarely survive.
These cases turn on evidence that a commercial carrier controls and that can disappear quickly.
Federal rules limit how many hours a trucker may drive, and electronic logging devices record those hours while the engine control module stores speed, braking, and throttle data from the moments before impact.
That information often decides whether a driver was fatigued or speeding, yet a carrier may overwrite or lose it if no one demands its preservation right away. A prompt legal hold letter tells the company to keep the logs, the maintenance records, and the driver qualification file before they vanish.
A single truck crash can involve the driver, the motor carrier, the company that loaded the trailer, and the firm that maintained the brakes, each with its own insurance. Commercial policies often reach well beyond the coverage on an ordinary car, and finding every party is how a family reaches enough coverage to address a lifetime of loss.
Workplace Deaths and Texas Nonsubscriber Employers
Texas stands alone as the only state that does not require most private employers to carry workers’ compensation insurance. An employer that opts out is called a nonsubscriber, and that single choice changes everything about a fatal workplace claim. When a nonsubscriber’s worker dies on the job, the family can sue the employer directly for negligence.
A nonsubscriber also loses its most powerful defenses under the Texas Labor Code, so it cannot blame the worker’s own carelessness or a coworker’s actions to escape responsibility. Construction falls, forklift and machinery incidents, and heat-related deaths on San Antonio job sites during triple-digit summers are among the losses these claims address.
If the employer does carry workers’ compensation, the rules shift. Comp benefits usually become the exclusive remedy against that employer, though the family may still pursue a third party such as an equipment maker or a subcontractor.
Even against a subscribing employer, the surviving spouse and heirs may seek exemplary damages when a death was caused by the employer’s gross negligence, a door many families do not know exists.
Deadlines and Government Cases in Texas Wrongful Death Claims
A wrongful death claim generally must be filed within two years of the date of death under Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and letting that deadline pass usually forecloses the claim for good.
Two years can slip by quickly while a family grieves and settles an estate, which is why early guidance protects the family’s rights without rushing their healing.
When the death involves a government entity, such as a crash with a city or transit vehicle, a much shorter notice deadline applies first under the Texas Tort Claims Act, and damage caps limit what the government must pay.
Sorting out whether a government defendant is involved is one of the first things a wrongful death lawyer determines, because it can move the real deadline from two years to a matter of months.
Texas Tort Claims Act Notice Deadline
Suing a government body in Texas is nothing like suing a private driver or company. The state waives its immunity only in narrow situations under the Tort Claims Act, and it demands formal written notice of a claim within six months of the incident.
That notice must describe the harm, the time and place, and the incident itself, and missing it can end a claim before it begins.
The City of San Antonio, like many Texas municipalities, can shorten that notice window through its own charter, so the practical deadline is often far less than six months. The Tort Claims Act also caps what a family can recover.
A claim against a municipality is limited under Section 101.023 to $250,000 for each person and $500,000 for each single occurrence involving death or bodily injury, no matter how large the true loss.
Claims Against the City and VIA Metropolitan Transit
A fatal collision with a city vehicle, a public works truck, or a VIA Metropolitan Transit bus falls under these rules rather than ordinary crash law. The family must identify the correct government entity, deliver notice in the right form, and file suit within the shortened timeline while the damage caps apply.
A private crash on the same stretch of I-35 would follow the standard two-year rule instead.
Government vehicles are not the only path to a public defendant. A dangerous road design, a missing guardrail, or a defective traffic signal can point to a city or county, though these premises and special-defect claims carry their own strict notice steps.
Determining early whether a public body shares fault protects a claim a family could otherwise lose to a deadline it never knew was running.
Exceptions That Can Change the Filing Deadline
A few situations can shift the two-year deadline. When a surviving child is a minor, the law may pause that child’s own claim until they turn 18 under the rules on legal disability, so a young child’s right to recover is not lost while an adult fails to act.
In narrow cases where the cause of death was not known right away, a limited discovery rule can delay when the clock starts.
These exceptions are narrower than families hope, and they do not rescue a missed government notice deadline, which courts treat strictly and rarely forgive. Guessing wrong about which deadline applies is a costly mistake, and the safest course is to have the timeline reviewed long before any deadline is close.
San Antonio Wrongful Death Lawyers
No claim can replace the person your family lost. What it can do is hold the responsible party accountable and secure the financial stability your family needs to move forward, without adding legal stress to your grief.
Our team brings decades of experience to families across Texas, and the consultation is always free and confidential. There is no fee unless we win the case for you, so seeking answers costs your family nothing.
You do not need to have every document in hand or every question answered before you reach out. A consultation is simply a chance to understand your options, learn which deadlines apply to your situation, and decide what feels right for your family, with no obligation to go further.
Call (512) 254-4424 whenever you are ready, or reach us through our contact page to speak with a San Antonio wrongful death lawyer who will handle your family’s claim with the care it deserves.
Frequently Asked Questions
A death caused by someone else’s carelessness, not only by a crime. The statute reaches any wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default that causes a death (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.002). One limit matters: the claim exists only if your loved one could have sued had they survived (§ 71.003).
There is no typical figure, and any site quoting one is guessing. A jury awards damages proportionate to the injury the death caused, then divides them among the family in shares (§ 71.010). One protection surprises families. A wrongful death recovery is not subject to the debts of the person who died (§ 71.011).
Most claims never reach a verdict, because they settle first. Texas courts disposed of 73,064 injury and damage cases in 2024, and only 544 ended in a jury verdict (Texas Office of Court Administration). In Bexar County the odds turn on evidence and available insurance, not on the courthouse.
Usually a year or more, and often longer. Of 386,193 Texas civil cases disposed in 2024, 96,182 took more than 18 months (Texas Office of Court Administration). Death cases sit at the slow end, because economists must project a lifetime of lost support. No family should feel rushed toward a first offer.
Yes, and the two cases run side by side. Texas law says the claim is not blocked because the death was caused by a felony or because a criminal case is underway (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.006). The civil case also uses a lower standard of proof, so an acquittal does not end it.
Legal Sources & References
The Texas laws described on this page are cited to the official statutes published by the Texas Legislature and were last reviewed on August 14, 2026.
- Statute of limitations (2 years), Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003
- Comparative responsibility & reduction, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 33.001, 33.012
- Duty to report a crash, Tex. Transp. Code §§ 550.021–550.026, 550.062
- Exemplary (punitive) damages, Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.003
- Texas crash data, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)
