Wrongful Death Litigation
Wrongful Death Trial Lawyer
No verdict can restore what your family has lost. What a wrongful death case can do is provide answers, accountability, and the security your loved one would have wanted for you. We prepare every one of these cases for trial — because that is how the full truth comes out.
Why These Cases Are Different
A Case About a Life — and the People Left Behind
A wrongful death case is unlike any other. The person at its center cannot speak for themselves, the losses reach every corner of a family, and the defense will still fight it like any other lawsuit. It deserves a lawyer who prepares accordingly.
The Claim Belongs to the Family
A wrongful death case is brought by the survivors, for the survivors — a spouse, children, sometimes parents. It compensates their loss: the support, companionship, and guidance that person provided every day.
Two Cases in One
Alongside the family’s claim, the estate can often bring a survival action — the claim the person themselves would have had. The two claims cover different losses, and both have to be built.
The Full Measure of a Life
The law does not stop at lost income. Love, companionship, comfort, guidance, moral support — the case has to show a jury what the person meant to the people around them.
Answers Are Part of the Recovery
For many families, knowing exactly what happened — and hearing a jury say who was responsible — matters as much as the compensation. Trial preparation is how those answers get forced into the open.
What “Trial Ready” Means
Not Our Largest Recovery.
Our Clearest.
Our verdicts and settlements together pass $86 million, and larger results appear throughout this site. But no single case says more about what “Built for Trial. Ready for Yours.” means than this one.
$25,000
Highest Offer Before Trial
$1,000,000
Jury Verdict — 40× the Final Offer
In a fatal trucking crash case in Orange County, California, the defense disputed liability from the first day — and kept disputing it. The highest offer ever made before trial was $25,000. Together with good friends at The Simon Law Group, we prepared the case for the courtroom, tried it, and the jury returned a $1,000,000 verdict for the decedent’s adult son — placing 70% of the responsibility on the defendant.
That is the difference trial preparation makes. Insurers price a case by what happens if it reaches a jury — and a family should never have to accept a number that ignores their loss.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is different.
What Families Need to Know
Who Can Bring a Wrongful Death Claim
Every state defines which family members can bring a wrongful death claim, and the rules differ more than most people expect. A surviving spouse and children are almost always included. In some states, parents have a claim of their own even when their child left children behind; in others, the claim follows the line of inheritance. Evan Garcia is admitted in California, Texas, and Arizona, and the first step in any wrongful death case is identifying every family member the law recognizes — so no one’s claim is left behind.
What the Law Recognizes as Loss
A wrongful death recovery accounts for two kinds of loss. The first is economic: the financial support, benefits, and household services the person provided, measured over the years they should have had. The second has nothing to do with money — the loss of love, companionship, comfort, care, protection, guidance, and moral support. Proving that second category takes the same rigor as any other element of the case: the person’s life has to be shown to the jury, not summarized for it.
The Survival Action
A wrongful death claim compensates the family. A survival action is different — it is the claim the person themselves would have had if they had lived, brought by their estate. In some circumstances it can include punitive damages: the jury’s way of punishing conduct, not just compensating for it. Which claims are available, and what each can recover, depends on the state and the facts — and getting that combination right is part of building the case.
Deadlines Are Shorter Than You Think
Every state sets a deadline for filing a wrongful death case — often two years, sometimes less. And when a public entity is involved — a city bus, a government vehicle, a public roadway — formal notice requirements can arrive within months of the death, long before most families are ready to think about a lawsuit. Evidence disappears on the same clock: vehicles get repaired, data gets overwritten, witnesses move. Talking to a lawyer early costs nothing; waiting can cost the case.
The TrialReady Approach
Prepared for Trial From Day One
The defense tries wrongful death cases the way it tries every case — with experts, with blame, with delay. As lead trial counsel, Evan Garcia has secured more than $86 million in verdicts and settlements for injured clients and grieving families — including a wrongful death verdict that came back at forty times the insurer’s final offer, in a trucking case with heavily disputed liability.
Insurers track which lawyers actually try cases. When a wrongful death case arrives prepared — the investigation complete, the experts retained, the family’s story ready to be told — settlement negotiations change. And when they don’t change enough, we are ready.
$86M+
Recovered for Injured Clients and Families
See Case ResultsReady to Talk About Your Case?
Free consultations. No fees unless we win. Call or message us today.