Wrongful Death Damages and Compensation

When a loved one’s life is cut short by someone else’s negligence, no amount of money can truly compensate a family for their loss. However, Texas wrongful death law provides a framework for recovering damages that reflect the full financial and personal impact of the death on surviving family members. Understanding what types of compensation are available — and how to maximize your family’s recovery — is essential to ensuring that the responsible party is held fully accountable. McFarlane Law fights to recover every dollar our clients’ families are entitled to under Texas law, working with economists, vocational experts, and life care planners to document the complete scope of damages.

Economic Damages in Texas Wrongful Death Cases

Economic damages represent the quantifiable financial losses that surviving family members suffer as a result of their loved one’s death. The most significant economic damage in most wrongful death cases is the deceased person’s lost earning capacity — the total income the person would have earned over their remaining working life had they survived. This calculation accounts not only for the deceased’s current salary, but also for projected raises, promotions, bonuses, overtime, employer-provided benefits including health insurance, retirement contributions, and stock options. Forensic economists retained by McFarlane Law analyze the deceased’s education, work history, career trajectory, and industry trends to develop comprehensive projections that capture the full value of lost lifetime earnings. Medical expenses incurred between the date of injury and the date of death, including emergency medical transport, emergency room treatment, surgical interventions, hospitalization, and all related care, are recoverable economic damages. Funeral and burial expenses, which can easily reach $15,000 to $25,000 or more in Texas, are also recoverable. The loss of the deceased’s household services — including home maintenance, childcare, cooking, transportation, and other tasks the deceased performed for the family — has quantifiable economic value that is calculated by economists and included in the damages claim.

Non-Economic Damages for Wrongful Death

Non-economic damages compensate surviving family members for the deeply personal, intangible losses that accompany the death of a loved one. Loss of companionship and society reflects the loss of the deceased’s presence, friendship, and daily interaction in the lives of family members — the conversations, shared meals, family activities, holidays, and everyday moments that will never happen. Loss of love and affection compensates for the emotional bond and mutual caring that the deceased shared with their spouse, children, and parents. Mental anguish damages address the severe emotional suffering, grief, depression, anxiety, and psychological trauma that family members experience following a wrongful death. Loss of counsel and advice recognizes the guidance, wisdom, and mentoring that the deceased would have provided to family members — particularly significant when the deceased was a parent of young children who would have benefited from years of parental guidance. Loss of consortium specifically compensates the surviving spouse for the loss of the marital relationship, including its intimate, emotional, and supportive dimensions. While these damages are inherently subjective, experienced wrongful death attorneys know how to present compelling evidence — through testimony, photographs, and documentation of the family’s life together — that communicates the true magnitude of these losses to a jury.

Punitive (Exemplary) Damages in Texas Wrongful Death Cases

In addition to compensatory damages, Texas law allows juries to award exemplary (punitive) damages in wrongful death cases involving particularly egregious conduct. Under Chapter 41 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, exemplary damages may be awarded when the defendant’s actions involved fraud, malice, or gross negligence. In the wrongful death context, gross negligence requires proof that the defendant was aware that their conduct created an extreme degree of risk of serious harm to others and proceeded with conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others. Common scenarios that may support exemplary damages include deaths caused by drunk drivers with extremely high blood alcohol levels or prior DUI convictions, trucking companies that knowingly falsified safety records or ignored hours-of-service violations, employers that willfully disregarded known safety hazards or OSHA requirements, and medical providers who acted with conscious disregard for patient safety. Texas law caps exemplary damages at the greater of $200,000 or two times the amount of economic damages plus an amount equal to non-economic damages up to $750,000. However, these caps do not apply in certain situations, including cases involving felony conduct that caused the death. McFarlane Law aggressively pursues exemplary damages when the evidence supports them, both to maximize the family’s recovery and to deter similar dangerous behavior.

Survival Action Damages

In addition to wrongful death damages recovered by the family, Texas law allows the deceased person’s estate to pursue a separate survival action for damages the deceased person suffered between the time of injury and the time of death. Survival action damages may include the deceased’s own physical pain and suffering during the period between injury and death, the deceased’s mental anguish and emotional distress during that period, medical expenses incurred in treating the injuries that ultimately proved fatal, and lost wages from the date of injury through the date of death. When there is a significant gap between the injury and death — as often occurs in medical malpractice cases, workplace injury cases, or accidents where the victim survives for days or weeks in intensive care — survival action damages can be substantial. The survival action proceeds as if the deceased person survived and is bringing their own personal injury claim, with any recovery going to the estate rather than directly to the family members. However, as a practical matter, estate distributions ultimately benefit the same surviving family members. McFarlane Law evaluates both wrongful death and survival action claims in every case to identify all available sources of recovery.

How McFarlane Law Maximizes Wrongful Death Compensation

Insurance companies and defense attorneys in wrongful death cases employ sophisticated strategies to minimize the value of claims, including challenging the deceased’s earning projections, disputing the quality of family relationships, and arguing that comparative fault reduces the award. McFarlane Law counters these tactics with thorough, evidence-based presentations that document every dimension of the family’s loss. We retain forensic economists who prepare detailed lifetime earnings projections supported by industry data, Bureau of Labor Statistics research, and the deceased’s documented career trajectory. Our life care planning experts calculate the value of lost household services, childcare, and other contributions using established methodologies. We work closely with families to document the richness of their relationships through photographs, videos, correspondence, and testimony from friends, colleagues, and community members who can speak to the deceased’s role in their family’s life. This comprehensive approach to damages documentation ensures that insurance companies and juries understand the true cost of the family’s loss — not just the numbers on a spreadsheet, but the human reality of a life taken too soon. Contact McFarlane Law at (512) 222-4900 for a free consultation to discuss the potential value of your wrongful death claim.

Related Practice Areas

Texas Wrongful Death Lawyer — Back to main wrongful death page
Wrongful Death Settlements
Filing a Wrongful Death Claim
Statute of Limitations
Texas Personal Injury Lawyer