Answers for anyone hurt in California

The general limit in California is two years, with exceptions. Nobody can tell you from a form whether yours is still open; a quiet conversation can.

Funeral costs, the support the person would have provided, and the loss of their companionship. It is measured carefully and without pressure.

No. Aryan Aliakbarzadeh, Esq. can explain who is entitled to bring the claim and what it involves, and you decide when you are ready.

By agreement if the family can reach one, and by the court if not. Each person entitled to claim under Code of Civil Procedure §377.60 recovers for their own loss, so the shares reflect who depended on the person and who lost the most, not an equal split. Where the parties agree, the court is asked to approve the division; where they do not, a judge decides after hearing from each.

Parents can, when the person had no spouse, domestic partner or children, or when the parents were financially dependent on them. Brothers and sisters can only when there is no one ahead of them in the order set by Code of Civil Procedure §377.60. The order is fixed by law, not by who was closest, which is why the question comes up so often in families.

A wrongful death claim is the family’s own loss: the support, companionship and guidance the person would have given. A survival action is the claim the person had before they died, brought by their estate: their medical bills, the wages they lost, the damage to their property. In California the two are usually brought together, and Accident Lawyer of California, P.C. files them as one case.

No. The criminal case is the state’s; the wrongful death claim is the family’s, and it can be filed and pursued while the prosecution goes on. The two have different standards of proof, so a claim can succeed whatever happens in the criminal court, and a conviction, where there is one, helps. The time limit on the civil claim keeps running during the prosecution, which is the reason not to wait.

The family pays first, and the claim recovers it. Reasonable funeral and burial costs are part of what a California wrongful death claim covers, and the person who paid them is repaid from the recovery. Keep the invoices and receipts, whoever in the family paid; they are part of the claim.