California Wrongful Death Lawyer
When a Family Has to Sue to Survive
The phone call no one expects to get changes a family in a single sentence. A father killed in a commercial trucking crash on the 5 Freeway. A mother who never came home from a routine hospital procedure. A child taken by a wildfire that should never have started. A brother lost to a defective product the manufacturer knew was dangerous and sold anyway. In moments like that, the law cannot bring the person back. What it can do is hold the responsible party accountable and put the family in a position to survive the financial aftermath.
A California wrongful death lawyer is the person who takes that burden off the family. KBK Lawyers handles wrongful death cases as a core part of our complex injury practice — most often against the kind of corporate, institutional, and utility defendants that survivors should not have to face alone.
The Two Cases Inside a California Wrongful Death
Under California law, a fatal-injury case is actually two cases that run together.
The first is the wrongful death claim under California Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60. The statutory heirs — usually the surviving spouse, registered domestic partner, and children, with a fallback hierarchy if there is no immediate family — can recover the financial support the loved one would have provided, the value of household services, funeral and burial costs, and the loss of love, companionship, comfort, care, society, and moral support. These damages belong to the survivors. They do not belong to the estate.
The second is the survival action under California Code of Civil Procedure section 377.30. This claim belongs to the decedent’s estate and covers the damages the decedent could have brought if they had lived — usually medical bills paid before death and, under California’s recently expanded survival statute, pre-death pain and suffering. The survival action can substantially increase the total recovery, particularly in cases where the decedent suffered before passing.
A California wrongful death lawyer who has handled both claim types together knows how to value them, how to structure the complaint, and how to coordinate the recovery with the probate process.
Who Has Standing to Bring a Wrongful Death Case in California
California’s wrongful death statute lists the heirs in a specific order. A California wrongful death lawyer reviews that order at the first call to make sure the right people are named as plaintiffs:
- Surviving spouse, domestic partner, and children
- Issue of any deceased children (grandchildren)
- If no surviving spouse or descendants, the parties entitled to the property by intestate succession (parents, siblings, and others)
- Putative spouses, stepchildren, and parents in some specific circumstances if they were dependent on the decedent
The statute is technical. Getting it right at the start avoids motions to strike and protects the case down the line.
Why KBK Lawyers
Brian Kabateck, our founding partner, is a past President of Consumer Attorneys of California and a past President of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. He has spent decades representing California families in catastrophic and wrongful death matters against corporate defendants, including utility companies, trucking companies, hospitals, and product manufacturers. Our firm is in active wrongful death litigation across the state, including matters arising from the 2025 California wildfires.
A California wrongful death lawyer at our firm handles the case from the first consultation through trial. We do not refer wrongful death work out, and we do not staff these matters with junior associates. The senior litigators on our team are the ones who try them.
What a California Wrongful Death Case Is Worth
Damages in a wrongful death and survival action together can include:
- Financial support the decedent would have provided over their working life
- Value of household services and contributions (childcare, home repair, family management)
- Funeral, burial, and final medical expenses
- Loss of love, companionship, comfort, care, society, moral support, sexual relations, and training
- Pre-death pain and suffering under California’s expanded survival statute
- Punitive damages where the defendant’s conduct was malicious, oppressive, or fraudulent
Values vary enormously by the decedent’s age, earning capacity, life expectancy, the strength of the liability case, and the depth of the defendant’s insurance and assets. A California wrongful death lawyer can give a realistic damages range during a free consultation.
Deadlines
California gives surviving family members two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death case in most circumstances. Cases involving a public entity defendant — a public hospital, a city transit authority, a public utility like LADWP — require a written government claim within six months of the death. Medical negligence cases have their own statute under MICRA. Wildfire-related wrongful death cases inherit the deadlines of the underlying fire litigation. Call before any of these clocks runs.
Frequently Asked Questions
California law specifies who has standing — typically the surviving spouse, registered domestic partner, and children. If multiple heirs disagree, the case is usually filed jointly. A California wrongful death lawyer can walk the family through who is named as plaintiff and how the recovery is distributed.
Two to four years from intake is typical for serious burn cases, in part because the surgical course can run that long. We do not push for early settlement before the medical course is stable enough to value the case fairly.
Yes. The criminal case is the State of California against the defendant. The wrongful death case is your family against the defendant. They run on separate tracks, and a criminal conviction or plea can actually strengthen the civil case.