Board-Certified Trial Lawyers for Missouri City Wrongful Death Claims
If you are reading this soon after losing someone, there is no hurry on our side. When you are ready, we will explain how a Texas wrongful death claim works, who is entitled to bring one, and what the deadlines actually are. Fort Bend County cases are heard at the courthouse in Richmond, seven minutes from our office. The consultation is free. No fee or expenses unless we win.
Call (281) 238-5400 Contact UsWhat usually needs to happen, and roughly in what order.
- Nothing today. There is no step on this page that has to be taken this week. The deadlines described below are real, but they are not tomorrow, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
- Keep what you already have. The report, the hospital paperwork, the bills as they arrive, whatever the funeral home gave you. You don’t need to organize any of it. Just don’t throw it away.
- Be careful with the insurance company’s call. Someone will call, and they may well be kind about it. You are not required to give a recorded statement, and you should not sign anything that releases a claim in the first weeks of this.
- Find out who is entitled to bring the claim before anything gets filed. Texas is specific about this, and sorting it out at the start avoids a problem later. It is explained below.
When you want to talk it through, we will. There is no cost to the conversation and no obligation attached to it.
Texas splits this into two separate claims.
This surprises most families. Under Texas law, what happened gives rise to two different claims, and they belong to different people. The wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving spouse, the children and the parents of the person who died; it compensates them for what they themselves have lost. The survival claim belongs to the estate, and it carries what the person who died would have been able to recover had they lived — what they went through between the injury and their death, and the expenses that accumulated in that time.
They are pleaded differently, proven with different evidence, and the money from them is distributed differently. A wrongful death recovery goes to the family members who brought it, in shares. A survival recovery goes to the estate and passes according to the will, or under the intestacy rules if there isn’t one. It is common for both to be running at once, which is why it matters to work out at the beginning who is bringing what — rather than correcting a filing afterward.
The general Texas deadline is two years, measured from the date of death rather than the date of the injury. But the practical deadline can be considerably shorter. If a governmental body is involved — a city, a county, a school district, a public hospital — formal written notice has to be given well inside that period, and those notice requirements are enforced strictly. Some are shorter still under a city’s own charter. If there is any chance a public entity is involved, that is the one thing genuinely worth asking about early.
Many of the claims we handle in Missouri City begin as vehicle collisions — see our Missouri City car accident page, or our truck accident page if a commercial vehicle was involved, because those run on federal rules and on records that do not survive indefinitely. Others begin as a motorcycle crash, as a pedestrian being struck, or as an injury on someone else’s property.
Fort Bend County cases are heard in Richmond.
Most of Missouri City is in Fort Bend County, and Fort Bend County cases are heard at the county courthouse in Richmond — seven minutes from our office. Part of the city extends into Harris County, so where the incident happened, not the family’s address, decides which courthouse hears the case. It is a quiet detail that shapes everything that follows: the local procedures, the pace, and the people who would sit on a jury.
Two of our attorneys are Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. It is the credential the State of Texas itself administers for injury trial lawyers — examination, peer evaluation, documented trial experience — and you can read what it involves rather than take our word for it.
No recovery, no fee. No case expenses either.
The sentence below is the whole arrangement, and we don’t fine-print our way around it: No fee or expenses unless we win. The consultation is free — and if we think there isn’t a claim here, we’ll tell you that for free too.
What happens if you call.
- You tell us what happened, in English or Spanish, in as much or as little detail as you want to give. You are not committing to anything by calling.
- We tell you honestly whether there is a claim worth bringing. Sometimes there isn’t. A death that was nobody’s fault is not a case, and we would rather say that plainly than encourage a claim that shouldn’t be brought.
- If there is a claim, we explain who is entitled to bring it, what the deadlines are in your particular situation, and what the coming months would realistically look like. You can take that away and think about it for as long as you need.
Send us a message and we’ll call you back.
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Common questions
Who is entitled to bring a wrongful death claim in Texas?
The surviving spouse, the children, and the parents of the person who died. They can bring it together or separately. If none of them has brought it within a period set by statute, the executor or administrator of the estate may bring it instead, unless the family asks that it not be filed.
What is the difference between the wrongful death claim and the survival claim?
The wrongful death claim belongs to the family and compensates them for their own loss. The survival claim belongs to the estate and carries what the person who died could have recovered had they lived — what they experienced between the injury and their death, and the expenses from that period. They are pleaded differently and distributed differently, and a family often has both.
How long do we have?
Generally two years, measured from the date of death. It can be shorter in practice: where a governmental body is involved, formal written notice is required well inside that period and the requirement is enforced strictly. If there is any possibility a public entity is involved, ask about it early.
We are not sure this was anyone's fault.
Then it may not be a case, and that is a real answer rather than a discouraging one. Not every death that looks preventable in hindsight is one the law makes someone responsible for. We would rather tell you that on the phone than take on a claim that shouldn't be brought — and it costs nothing to ask.
What does it cost to talk to you?
Nothing. No fee or expenses unless we win, and the consultation is free whether or not there turns out to be a claim.