The surviving spouse or registered domestic partner, the children, and the children of any child who has already died can file. If there is nobody in that group, the right passes to whoever would inherit under California’s intestacy rules, and a separate group of people who depended on the person financially can file whether or not they appear on that first list.
The list is set out in Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60, and it is narrower than most families expect in one direction and wider in another. A long term partner who never registered may have no claim. A stepchild who relied on the person for support may have one.
This article is by Accident Lawyer of California, P.C., the personal injury practice of Aryan Aliakbarzadeh, Esq. in Northridge, California, admitted to the State Bar of California in October 2012. It describes how these cases work in California; it is not advice about yours.
Who is on the list Link to this section
Section 377.60 subdivision (a) starts with the immediate family. The surviving spouse, the domestic partner, the children, and the issue of any deceased child.
If there is no surviving issue, the right passes to the people entitled to the person’s property by intestate succession, which can include the surviving spouse or domestic partner. Where parents would have qualified but have themselves died, the person’s legal guardians may bring the claim as if they were the parents.
Domestic partner means something specific here. Subdivision (f) defines it as a partner in a domestic partnership registered under Family Code section 297 subdivision (b) at the time of death. Registration is the line. A relationship that looks like a marriage in every other respect does not substitute for it.
The claim may be brought by any of these people, or by the person’s personal representative acting on their behalf.
The category most families have never heard of Link to this section
Subdivision (b) adds people who can file whether or not they qualify under the first list, provided they were dependent on the person who died.
That group is the putative spouse, the children of a putative spouse, stepchildren, parents, and legal guardians where the parents have died. A putative spouse is defined in the statute as the surviving spouse of a void or voidable marriage who believed in good faith that the marriage was valid.
Subdivision (c) adds one more. A minor may file, whether or not they fall under either of the other categories, if they lived in the household for the 180 days before the death and depended on the person for one half or more of their support.
Dependency is the key in all of these. It is a question of fact about money and household arrangements, not about how close the relationship felt, and it is proved with records rather than with testimony about affection.
What a wrongful death claim pays for, and the part that surprises people Link to this section
The claim belongs to the surviving family and compensates their losses, not the deceased person’s.
On the economic side that covers the financial support the person would have provided, gifts or benefits the family could reasonably have expected to receive, funeral and burial expenses, and the reasonable value of the household services the person would have performed. California’s own jury instruction on this, CACI 3921, sets those out.
On the non economic side it covers the loss of the person’s love, companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, society and moral support, and in the right case the loss of their training and guidance.
Here is the part that catches families off guard. The jury is instructed that it must not consider the plaintiff’s own grief, sorrow or mental anguish. Nor the deceased person’s pain and suffering. Nor whether the family is rich or poor.
Read quickly that sounds cruel. It is actually a distinction between two things that feel identical. You cannot be compensated for how much it hurts. You can be compensated for the loss of the relationship itself, which is what the long list of words in the paragraph above is describing. The grief is not the claim. The absence is.
The change that took effect in January 2026 Link to this section
There is a second, separate claim that belongs to the estate rather than to the family. It is called a survival action, and it covers what the person themselves lost between the injury and the death.
For several years that claim could include the person’s own pain, suffering and disfigurement. Senate Bill 447 added that in 2021, and it applied to actions filed on or after 1 January 2022 and before 1 January 2026. It carried an expiry date. A bill that would have extended it, Senate Bill 29, did not pass.
So the window closed. For an action filed on or after 1 January 2026, the survival claim reverts to what it was before, which is the loss or damage the person sustained or incurred before death. Medical expenses, lost earnings, property damage. Not their suffering.
Two things about that matter to a family deciding what to do.
The filing date controls, not the date of the death or the injury. And a great deal of what you will find written about California survival actions online was written during that four year window and has not been updated, so it describes a claim that no longer exists in that form.
The wrongful death claim under section 377.60, the one belonging to the family, is unaffected by any of this.
The two deadlines, and the short one Link to this section
A wrongful death action in California generally has to be filed within two years, under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. For a death the clock usually runs from the date of death rather than the date of the incident.
If a public entity is involved, and that covers a city or county vehicle, a transit agency, a public road or any other public property, a written claim usually has to be presented within six months under Government Code section 911.2. Six months is the shortest deadline in California injury law and it runs during the period when a family is least able to attend to paperwork.
If fault is disputed, expect it to be apportioned rather than decided outright. California reduces a recovery by the share of responsibility the evidence supports rather than canceling the claim, and the way that argument runs is the same as in any other case, as set out in what happens when a claim is partly your fault.
What to do now Link to this section
Do not sign anything from an insurer. Not a release, not an authorization for records, not a statement. Nothing in the first weeks requires a signature and a great deal of it is hard to undo.
Get a certified copy of the death certificate and keep the originals of everything. Medical records, the incident report, any correspondence.
Write down who in the family falls into which category above. Who was married or registered, who the children are, who lived in the household and who relied on the person financially. That list decides who the claimant is, and getting it wrong at the start causes problems later.
Keep a record of the household’s financial position before and after. Not for the claim’s emotional content, which the law excludes, but for the support and services elements, which it does not.
Ask what the realistic sequence looks like before you make decisions on a deadline. These claims take time, and how long an injury claim takes in California applies to them too.
If your family has lost someone in Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley, Aryan Aliakbarzadeh, Esq. will tell you who in the family has the claim and which deadline applies before anything has to be decided. He handles wrongful death claims across the Valley. Call or text 818-718-2522, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, or use the contact page.