No family should ever get the phone call that someone they love is gone because another person, company, or facility cut a corner. The shock comes first. Then come the funeral costs, the medical bills, and, if your loved one was a breadwinner, the question of how the family keeps going.

Here’s what most families don’t realize in those first weeks: evidence doesn’t wait for you to be ready. Video can be overwritten, equipment can be repaired, electronic data can be lost, and witnesses can become harder to find. As our former prosecutors put it, these cases don’t move fast on the surface, but underneath they’re moving the entire time. By the time it feels real to you, it’s usually much further along than you think.

When a death is caused by someone else’s negligence, recklessness, or intentional wrongdoing, Texas law calls it a wrongful death, and it gives the family the right to hold that party accountable. Money will never replace the person you lost. But it can keep your family financially stable, and it forces the people responsible to answer for what never should have happened.

Have you lost a loved one due to someone else’s negligence? Call Keith & Lorfing today at (325) 308-6960 or contact us online to schedule a meeting with our wrongful death lawyer in Abilene!

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Determining if You Have a Wrongful Death Case

Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 71.002, a wrongful death claim exists when a death is caused by another’s “wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default.” In plain terms, we have to prove four things:

• Duty: The person or company owed your loved one a duty of reasonable care.
• Breach: They failed that duty. A driver ran a light. A company skipped a safety check. A facility left residents unsupervised.
• Causation: That specific failure caused the death. Being somewhere in the chain of events isn’t enough; the evidence has to tie their act directly to the loss.
• Damages: The death caused real losses to the family, financial and personal.

These deaths can come from car and commercial truck crashes, oilfield and worksite accidents, falls on dangerous property, swimming pool drownings, criminal attacks, medical negligence, and abuse or neglect in nursing homes.

If your loved one died after mistreatment in a care facility, our nursing home abuse page explains how these cases may be investigated.

That last category is personal for our firm. The father of one of our own attorneys suffered three fractured bones in his face when another resident struck him with a cane inside a secured memory care unit. We know what it is to trust a facility with someone you love and then get that phone call.

Civil Case vs. Criminal Case

A wrongful death claim is a civil case for money damages. If the at-fault person also broke the law, say a drunk driver, there may be a separate criminal case. The two run on different tracks, and a criminal conviction is not required to win a civil claim. Several of our attorneys are former state and federal prosecutors, so we know how a criminal case gets built from the inside.

Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim in Texas?

Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 71.004 gives the right to bring the claim to:

• The surviving spouse, including a common-law spouse
• Surviving children, adult or minor, including legally adopted children
• Surviving parents, including adoptive parents

They can file on their own or together, but it is treated as one claim for the benefit of all of them. If none of them files within three calendar months after the death, the executor or administrator of the estate generally must bring it, unless all of the family members ask that no claim be filed.

What about stepchildren and foster children?
You may have seen posts online saying Texas added stepchildren and foster children as wrongful death beneficiaries in 2026. That proposal never became law. Unless there was a legal adoption, a stepchild or foster child still does not automatically qualify. We know families out here don’t always look the way they do on paper, and a stepparent who showed up every single day is a parent in every way that matters. If that’s your family, call us anyway. A separate survival claim, which belongs to your loved one’s estate, may still give your family a path forward.

Texas injury and wrongful death laws can change, and those changes may affect who can file, what damages may be available, or how a case should be handled. For a broader update, our guide to new Texas personal injury and wrongful death laws explains recent changes families and injury victims should know about.

What Could Your Case Be Worth

Our former federal prosecutors learned something in fraud cases that applies here too: a loss calculation isn’t handed down on stone tablets. It’s usually a spreadsheet filled with assumptions, and the job is to poke holes in every cell. We bring that same approach to proving what your family lost.

A Texas death case can include two separate claims:

• The wrongful death claim (for the family): pecuniary losses such as the financial support your loved one would have provided, loss of companionship and society, mental anguish, and loss of inheritance.
• The survival claim (for the estate): it preserves the claim your loved one could have brought had they lived. It belongs to the estate and follows different rules.
• Exemplary (punitive) damages: when a death is caused by a willful act or gross negligence, the jury can award additional damages to punish the wrongdoer. Texas generally caps these under § 41.008.

Texas has no general cap on pain and suffering or mental anguish in an ordinary wrongful death case. Caps do apply in medical negligence cases and claims against government entities, which is one more reason to know early exactly who you’re up against.

What to Do Before You Call (and How to Reach Us)

Our former prosecutors saw the same two mistakes for years: letting evidence disappear and waiting too long. While you’re grieving, a few simple steps protect your family’s case:

• Keep everything. Photos, texts, voicemails, medical records, bills, the accident report, the funeral invoice. Don’t throw anything out or “clean up” a phone or social media account.
• Don’t try to explain your side alone. Let a lawyer make the first contact with the other side or its insurer.
• Write down witness names now. Witnesses can become harder to find as time passes.
• Don’t rely on informal promises. Any settlement or agreement should be clearly defined and in writing.

Keith & Lorfing are here to support you through every step of your wrongful death case. To discuss your situation and explore your legal options, you can:

• Call us: Reach out at (325) 480-8100 for a free consultation.
• Visit our office: Meet with our team in person in Abilene.
• Online contact form: Fill out our online contact form and we’ll get back to you promptly.