Recent Recoveries
- $2,000,000Car crash — litigation settlement
- $1,750,000Slip & fall — litigation settlement
- $1,000,00018-wheeler — litigation settlement
- $850,000Tractor-trailer — litigation settlement
- $650,000Commercial collision — litigation settlement
- $650,000Trucking accident — litigation settlement
- $550,000On-the-job injury — litigation settlement
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case is decided on its own facts.
There is no good time to read a page like this, and no version of it that is not about the worst thing that has happened to your family. What follows is the plain mechanics of a Texas wrongful death claim — who may bring one, what it can cover, and how long there is — because those are the questions people ring this office asking, usually while a funeral is still being arranged.
A claim will not undo any of it. What it can do is settle who pays for what was taken: the income a household has lost, the cost of the care and the burial, and the value of a person who was in your life and is not any more. Texas law puts a number on all of that, and it is specific about who may ask for it.
You do not have to decide anything today. It is worth asking somebody to preserve the evidence while you do — that part is on a clock, and almost nothing else about this is.
Free case review
You speak to the attorney who would try it, not to a screener.
No fee unless we win
Nothing up front, and the fee comes out of the recovery.
We come to you
Home and hospital visits anywhere in the Metroplex if you cannot travel.
The First Weeks
What is happening while you grieve
A death claim is not a slower version of an injury claim. The evidence is more perishable, the defendant is usually a company rather than a person, and the people entitled to bring it are three weeks into a bereavement — which is not something the other side’s timetable makes any allowance for.
The day it happened, somebody opened a file. An insurer for the driver, the trucking company or the property owner sent an adjuster out, and in the larger cases an investigator and a lawyer went with them. That is not a scandal, it is what they are paid to do — but it is worth knowing that it has already happened while your family is arranging a funeral.
What they are collecting is the same evidence that would prove your claim, and much of it does not last. Vehicles are repaired or sold for scrap. Camera footage from a business or a bus overwrites itself in a fortnight. A commercial driver’s logs and inspection records have retention periods measured in months. A scene is swept and reopened by the end of the day.
None of that asks you to make a decision this week. It asks somebody to put preservation letters in the post while the decisions are still ahead of you, which takes an afternoon and costs your family nothing. Everything else — whether there is a claim, whether to bring it, who brings it — can wait until you are ready to think about it.
Families almost always ring worried that they are being grasping by speaking to a lawyer this soon. In every one of these cases the other side had already spoken to theirs.
Aaron Genthe · Founder
- 01
The evidence is on a clock
Vehicles are repaired or scrapped, camera footage is overwritten on a loop of days, and a scene is swept before the week is out.
- 02
The claim belongs to named people
Texas says who may bring it — spouse, children, parents — and being outside that list is something to find out early, not late.
- 03
Two claims run from one death
What the family lost and what the person who died lost are separate cases in Texas law, proved with different evidence.
Who May File
The people Texas law gives this claim to
The Wrongful Death Act names them, and the list is shorter than most families expect. Being on it — or not being on it — is the first thing worth establishing, because it decides who signs and what has to be opened at the courthouse.
The surviving spouse
A husband or wife at the time of the death. An informal — common-law — marriage counts where it can be proved, which is done with the same evidence you would use anywhere else: an agreement to be married, living together in Texas, and holding yourselves out to other people as a couple.
The children
Sons and daughters of the person who died, adult or minor, and legally adopted children on exactly the same footing as biological ones.
The parents
The mother and father of the person who died, including adoptive parents. Parents of an adult child are beneficiaries in Texas, which surprises most of the people who ring to ask.
The estate’s representative — after three months
If none of the spouse, children or parents has filed within three calendar months of the death, the executor or administrator of the estate is required to bring the claim, unless all of them ask in writing that it not be brought.
Who cannot, under Texas law
Brothers and sisters, grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, fiancés and unmarried partners are not wrongful death beneficiaries in Texas, whatever the relationship actually was.
Texas Law
The five rules that decide these claims
Even where the death was plainly somebody else’s fault, these five decide what a family recovers and when.
Two years, from the date of the death
Most Texas wrongful death and survival claims must be filed within two years of the date of death.
The person who died can be blamed too
Texas divides responsibility. If a jury finds the person who died more than 50% responsible for what happened, the claim recovers nothing; below that, whatever share is assigned to them comes off the award.
Gross negligence changes what is on the table
Where a death was caused by a wilful act or by gross negligence, Texas allows exemplary damages on top of what the family lost — awarded to punish the conduct rather than to make anyone whole.
A few claims come with a ceiling
Most Texas wrongful death claims are not capped. Two kinds are: a claim against a government body is limited by the Tort Claims Act, and a claim arising out of medical care is limited by Chapter 74.
A jury divides it, not the will
In the wrongful death action the jury apportions what is recovered among the beneficiaries in proportion to what each of them has lost.
The Process
What happens when you call us
You will not be asked to make a decision on the phone, and you will not be handed to a call centre. This is the whole of it, in order.
- 01
You call, and we listen
Tell us what happened and who has already been in touch with you. If there is nothing here for your family we will say so, and say who to ask.
- 02
We stop the clock on the evidence
Preservation letters go out the same week — to the driver, the company, the property owner and their insurers — so the vehicle, the footage and the records cannot lawfully be destroyed.
- 03
We take over the calls
Every adjuster, every request for a recorded statement and every form comes to us. Nobody from the other side needs to ring your family again.
- 04
We prove what was lost
The reconstruction, the records, the earnings history and an economist who values a working life. Then the demand goes to the insurer.
- 05
We resolve it, or we try it
Most cases settle. We prepare each one as though it will not, and we walk you through every line of whatever is finally agreed.
Client Reviews
What our clients say about us
Reviews left on Google by people this firm has represented, published as they were written. None of them is from a family in a wrongful death case — what they describe is how this office handles a case, which is the part we can honestly show you.
Rated five out of five stars
“Mr. Genthe is an honest and caring attorney who truly helped me through this traumatic experience. He was with me every step of the way and was very informative on the process.”
Margaret Mijarez
Rated five out of five stars
“I worked with different team members at different stages of my case and each one was kind but honest with the progress and possible outcomes… They respond when you contact them with questions.”
phoebe Sembel
Rated five out of five stars
“From the very beginning, Aaron and his team were incredibly responsive, compassionate, and professional. They guided us through every step of the process, ensuring we understood our rights and options.”
Malaika Spratley
Your Attorney
The lawyer who works your case
This page has said several times that you will speak to a real attorney rather than a call centre. It is only fair to say who that is.
Founder · Trial Attorney
Aaron Genthe
A Texas A&M graduate who went into personal injury straight out of law school, Aaron spent years as a litigator at one of the larger firms in Dallas — long enough to build a reputation as an aggressive and effective attorney, and long enough to watch how easily a client becomes a file number at a firm that size.
He started Genthe Law Firm so that the person a family speaks to about a death is the person who tries the case. He has litigated injury and wrongful death matters in courts across Dallas County and North Texas since.
- Practising since
- 2015
- Cases handled
- Hundreds, in Dallas and across Texas
- Education
- Texas A&M graduate
- Fee
- Contingency — nothing unless you recover
Questions
Wrongful death FAQs
The questions families ask on the first call, answered the way we answer them on the phone.
Who can file a wrongful death claim in Texas?
The surviving spouse, the children and the parents of the person who died. Any one of them may bring the action, and it is brought for the benefit of all of them.
How long do we have to file?
Two years from the date of death in most cases. It sounds like a long time and it is not: the evidence that proves these claims is usually gone within weeks.
What is the difference between a wrongful death claim and a survival claim?
A wrongful death claim belongs to the family, for what the death cost them — lost support, lost companionship, mental anguish. A survival claim belongs to the estate, for what the person who died went through before they died and what it cost them: the pain, the medical bills, the funeral.
How much is a wrongful death case worth?
There is no table to look it up in, and any firm that gives you a figure before it has read the records is guessing. What it turns on is who the person was — their age, their earnings, who depended on them and for what — what the defendant did, what insurance stands behind them, and how much of the blame can be pushed back onto the person who died.
No one was charged with anything. Is there still a claim?
Very often, yes. A criminal case has to prove intent or recklessness beyond reasonable doubt; a civil claim only has to show negligence, and only on the balance of probabilities.
Read More
Wrongful death resources
Six pieces from the firm’s own writing on Texas death claims — the damages, the deadlines, and what to do in the weeks after.
- What Types of Damages Are Awarded in Wrongful Death Cases?The heads of damage, one at a time
- How to Handle a Wrongful Death in TexasThe first steps, in order
- Top 6 Questions About Texas Wrongful Death ClaimsWhat families ask on the first call
- 4 Most Common Causes of Wrongful Deaths in TexasWhere these cases come from
- Who Can Sue After a Construction or Trucking Death?When the defendant is a company
- Can I Sue If My Loved One Died in a Motorcycle Accident?A rider killed by another driver
