Texas Wrongful Death Knowledge Hub
Evidence, family rights, damages, and trial preparation
After a fatal injury, families often need answers to several questions at once: Who was responsible? Which relatives can bring a claim? Who can act for the estate? Texas law treats eligible family members’ wrongful death claims separately from the injury claim that survives for the person’s estate. An investigation must connect the conduct at issue to the injury and death, preserve evidence, and identify possible sources of recovery. It must also establish who has authority to make decisions. This hub covers those questions and includes more detailed litigation material for attorneys and referral partners.
The Law Firm of Aaron A. Herbert, P.C.
Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization
Some evidence cannot wait. A vehicle may be repaired, a recording overwritten, or a machine discarded. Ask about preserving it as soon as possible. You can seek advice about evidence or deadlines while you are still gathering documents and waiting for an agency report. If someone asks you to sign a release, bring the document to counsel. Find out which claims it would settle and who has authority to settle them; an insurer’s verbal summary is not enough.
Start with the question your family needs answered
Choose a topic below to learn what a family may need to prove and which decisions come next. The guides address responsibility, losses, investigation, and trial preparation, including how each can affect settlement advice. They also explain the limits of a claim. A death alone does not establish liability. An insurer’s fault percentage is not a court ruling. Even a well-supported damages calculation may exceed the money available to collect.
Pillar guide
Texas Wrongful Death Claims and Litigation Strategy
This guide follows a matter from intake and investigation through discovery, settlement, trial, and distribution. The supporting articles take up narrower questions: who qualifies as a beneficiary, what a missing recording means, and how prior disease may affect proof of the cause of death.
Read the wrongful-death guide →Family rights and the first decisions
Who Can File a Texas Wrongful Death Claim starts with the surviving spouse, children, and parents named in section 71.004. It then addresses relationship questions, estate authority, and representation. Read it to understand whose rights need attention before anyone discusses a settlement of all claims.
Wrongful Death and Survival Claims in Texas explains the difference between a family’s losses and the injured person’s claim that survives death. Medical expenses, conscious suffering, and economic losses do not all belong to the same claim. The distinction also matters when handling the estate and distributing a recovery.
Resource
What Families Should Do After a Fatal Accident in Texas
This guide covers the first practical steps: preserving evidence, handling communications, gathering documents, preparing for a consultation, and reviewing releases. It identifies urgent tasks you may need to address before all the legal questions have answers.
Read the first-days guide →
Evidence and investigation
Resource
Evidence Preservation and Spoliation in Texas Wrongful Death Cases
This guide walks through duty, breach, culpability, prejudice, and a proportionate remedy under Brookshire Brothers. A missing item does not, by itself, establish that an opponent improperly destroyed relevant evidence. The article explains what else matters.
Read the evidence preservation guide →Resource
Investigating a Fatal Accident in Texas
This guide follows the work of gathering agency records and witness accounts, documenting past scene conditions, and reconstructing events. Its focus is actual causal contribution. It also discusses what the 2025 Werner v. Blake decision means for developing a supported collision theory.
Read the fatal investigation guide →Digital Evidence in Texas Fatal Accident Cases covers recordings, vehicle data, phones, telematics, and dispatch records. Obtaining a file is only part of the work: lawful access, timing, original context, and qualified interpretation matter too. An unexplained screenshot or download summary may leave important questions unanswered.
Proving Medical Causation in a Texas Wrongful Death Case brings together the treatment timeline, autopsy information, prior disease, and later events. It explains expert analysis and evidence of conscious suffering. These records can help answer competing explanations for why the person died.
Damages and responsibility
Financial Support and Household Service Damages After a Texas Wrongful Death looks at earnings, benefits, financial support, and work done at home. It explains future projections, taxes where required, and how to avoid counting a loss twice. A careful review may identify contributions that an early claim estimate left out.
Mental Anguish and Loss of Companionship in Texas Wrongful Death Cases addresses each family member’s testimony, supporting evidence, privacy, and future losses. It also discusses damages arguments after Gregory v. Chohan. The aim is to present a family’s loss compassionately while building a record that supports the requested damages.
Texas Wrongful Death Claims After a Truck or Commercial Vehicle Crash examines company relationships, equipment, electronic records, applicable safety regulations, and chapter 72. It asks what each defendant actually contributed to the harm. A connection to a business does not, on its own, establish corporate responsibility.
Texas Wrongful Death Claims After a Workplace Fatality addresses coverage, exclusive remedy, nonsubscriber rules, possible third parties, and the defined exception for exemplary damages. The available claims and the people entitled to bring them can differ under the statutes involved.
Special Liability Rules in Texas Wrongful Death Cases covers premises, products, health care, and governmental defendants. The type of claim can change the duty, deadline, proof requirements, and available recovery. A substantial loss does not eliminate those rules.
Gross Negligence and Exemplary Damages in Texas Wrongful Death Cases explains extreme risk, actual awareness, attribution, and the burden of proof. It also covers procedural rules, limits, insurance coverage, and collection. Exemplary damages are a possible additional remedy when the requirements are met, not an automatic recovery.
Settlement, trial, and family safeguards
Evaluating a Texas Wrongful Death Settlement follows the offer through coverage, a supported demand, mediation, and a comparison of net outcomes. It then addresses releases, allocation, approval, and payment. Before accepting an offer, a family needs to know what it resolves and what the realistic alternatives are.
Texas Wrongful Death Trial Preparation and Family Safeguards covers witnesses, experts, jury questions, argument, preservation of error, postverdict work, and distribution. A proof map connects the issues to the evidence. Preparing for trial can also inform settlement advice.
For attorneys and referral partners
Attorneys can use the practitioner material to identify each claim and the person authorized to bring it, calendar the deadlines for each applicable legal framework, and maintain a preservation log. It calls for a separate causal analysis of each actor and a proof map linking legal propositions to admissible evidence. Topics include corporate testimony, electronic production, expert reliability, spoliation hearings, proportionate responsibility, damages presentation, and the appellate record. The examples are hypothetical; they are not reported firm cases.
For a referral or litigation discussion, have the injury and death dates, case posture, known beneficiaries, and estate-administration details available. Identify signed releases, approaching deadlines, and evidence at risk. Clarify which work has already been accepted and who will handle urgent steps until the receiving firm confirms acceptance. Ask how to send sensitive material securely before transferring the file.
Questions families often ask
Do we have to wait for the criminal investigation?
Generally, no. Civil and criminal proceedings have different purposes. Section 71.006 addresses deaths involving felonious acts and related proceedings. Evaluate civil deadlines and preservation needs separately. An arrest does not prove every civil element, and a supported negligence claim does not necessarily fail because no charges were filed.
Does every close relative have a claim?
No. Section 71.004 names specific categories of beneficiaries. An estate claim or another possible cause of action needs a separate analysis. Counsel should explain those categories clearly. They describe legal rights, not how much a relationship mattered to the people involved.
Is there a standard wrongful death settlement amount?
No. An assessment needs the evidence, applicable law, coverage, collection prospects, and allocation. Economic and family losses vary, as do responsibility and any special liability rules. A verdict or settlement in someone else’s case does not determine the outcome of yours.
Can a missing recording prove the defendant was at fault?
It may support a request for relief if the legal requirements are met. The court considers the duty to preserve, any breach, culpability, prejudice, and the appropriate remedy. Try to preserve the recording itself early. Do not assume that a later adverse inference will fill every gap in the proof.
What should we bring to a consultation?
Bring what you have: incident and death dates, report information, photographs, witness contacts, insurer or employer correspondence, signed documents, and probate papers. Point out any vehicle or equipment that may be disposed of. You do not need a complete file before asking for help with an urgent issue.
Consider Aaron Herbert for the investigation and trial work your case requires
Aaron A. Herbert is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. You can read about the firm’s jury trial experience in its background and see reported recoveries in its published case results. Consider those credentials alongside the evidence-preservation, expert, and trial work your case requires. Certification is held by the individual attorney. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
To discuss a fatal injury and possible representation, request a free consultation or call 214-200-4878. Mention any approaching deadline, release, or evidence at risk. Ask who would handle the case, what initial work is needed, and how fees and expenses are addressed. Attorneys can use the same contact information for a referral or litigation discussion. Representation begins when the firm agrees to accept the matter.
Legal sources
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code chapter 71 sections 71.002 through 71.011 and 71.021.
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code chapter 72.
Brookshire Brothers Ltd v Aldridge 438 SW3d 9 Tex 2014 docket 10 0846.
Petroleum Solutions Inc v Head 454 SW3d 482 Tex 2014 discussing Brookshire Brothers.
Gregory v Chohan 670 SW3d 546 Tex 2023 lead opinion.
Gregory v Chohan official disposition and links to separate opinions.
Werner Enterprises Inc v Blake No 23 0493 Tex June 27 2025 majority opinion.
Werner v Blake concurring opinion.
Werner v Blake opinion dissenting in part.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.
Texas Rules of Civil Procedure current official edition.
Texas Rules of Evidence and Appellate Procedure current official index.
This material provides general information about Texas law. The applicable facts, law, policy, court orders, and procedural posture govern each matter. Hypothetical examples illustrate analysis rather than reported firm cases.
ABOUT THE ATTORNEY
Aaron A. Herbert
Founding Attorney
Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law
Aaron founded The Law Firm of Aaron A. Herbert in 2010 to focus on developing each client's case and seeking its maximum value. For over a decade, he has represented people seriously injured in major accidents and industrial catastrophes, pursuing trial verdicts and settlements while working to reduce the stress of litigation.
Education
- Texas A&M University · B.S., Criminal Justice, 1999
- University of Oklahoma College of Law · J.D., 2002; graduated in the top of his class
Trial experience & approach
Aaron earned numerous jury verdicts at boutique personal injury litigation firms. According to his biography, he spent a year as the top-earning litigation attorney at a firm that frequently appeared in verdict searches as having one of the highest numbers of trial wins in Texas. At another Dallas personal injury firm, he moved from managing pre-litigation attorney to managing litigation attorney over seven years as the firm grew into one of Dallas's largest personal injury firms.
His biography describes a reputation as one of America's most aggressive trial lawyers, with noteworthy recoveries from judges and juries and substantial pretrial settlements. Most of those settlements included confidentiality agreements requested by the defense. Aaron has said the recoveries were justified by the injuries and losses involved, which no amount of money could make someone choose to experience.
His approach combines passion, preparation, persistence and courtroom imagination. He believes a well-supported, engaged and motivated team working cooperatively helps deliver strong representation, with the goal of achieving the best possible result for every client.
Dallas roots, military service & publication
Born and raised in Dallas, Aaron enlisted in the United States Marine Corps after high school and later received an Honorable Discharge. He completed his university and law degrees after his military service and became a lifelong Sooners football fan in law school.
Publication: “Litigating Dog Bite Cases,” Texas Dog Law Seminar, Dallas, 2009.
Professional affiliations & recognition
Professional affiliations and recognition listed in Aaron’s biography:
- State Bar of Texas
- American Bar Association
- Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now American Association for Justice)
- Texas Trial Lawyers Association
- Dallas Trial Lawyers Association
- Dallas Bar Association
- Tarrant County Bar Association
- Million Dollar Advocates Forum
- The National Trial Lawyers – Top 100 Trial Lawyers
Trial experience & approach
Aaron earned numerous jury verdicts at boutique personal injury litigation firms. According to his biography, he spent a year as the top-earning litigation attorney at a firm that frequently appeared in verdict searches as having one of the highest numbers of trial wins in Texas. At another Dallas personal injury firm, he moved from managing pre-litigation attorney to managing litigation attorney over seven years as the firm grew into one of Dallas's largest personal injury firms.
His biography describes a reputation as one of America's most aggressive trial lawyers, with noteworthy recoveries from judges and juries and substantial pretrial settlements. Most of those settlements included confidentiality agreements requested by the defense. Aaron has said the recoveries were justified by the injuries and losses involved, which no amount of money could make someone choose to experience.
His approach combines passion, preparation, persistence and courtroom imagination. He believes a well-supported, engaged and motivated team working cooperatively helps deliver strong representation, with the goal of achieving the best possible result for every client.
Dallas roots, military service & publication
Born and raised in Dallas, Aaron enlisted in the United States Marine Corps after high school and later received an Honorable Discharge. He completed his university and law degrees after his military service and became a lifelong Sooners football fan in law school.
Publication: “Litigating Dog Bite Cases,” Texas Dog Law Seminar, Dallas, 2009.
Professional affiliations & recognition
Professional affiliations and recognition listed in Aaron’s biography:
- State Bar of Texas
- American Bar Association
- Association of Trial Lawyers of America (now American Association for Justice)
- Texas Trial Lawyers Association
- Dallas Trial Lawyers Association
- Dallas Bar Association
- Tarrant County Bar Association
- Million Dollar Advocates Forum
- The National Trial Lawyers – Top 100 Trial Lawyers