Texas Wrongful Death Attorney

We Handle Wrongful Death Cases Arising From:

• Motor vehicle accidents
• Trucking collisions
• Workplace fatalities
• Medical malpractice
• Premises liability incidents
• Product defects

Our attorneys combine meticulous case preparation, extensive resources, and courtroom experience to maximize compensation for surviving family members — including recovery for funeral expenses, lost income, loss of companionship, and pain and suffering.

Deeply rooted in the East Texas community, McKay Law understands the unique needs of local families while delivering the sophisticated legal capabilities typically found in larger metropolitan firms. Hometown values, big-firm results.

"I couldn't have reached out to a better law firm to help bring justice to my family. They hit the ground running."Samantha McKinney · Family of a fatal drunk-driving victim

Texas Wrongful Death Law, Explained

The Texas Wrongful Death Act (Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 71) allows the surviving spouse, children, and parents of a person killed by another's negligence to recover for their own losses: lost financial support, lost inheritance, loss of companionship and society, and mental anguish. Alongside it, a survival action lets the deceased's estate recover damages the victim could have claimed had they lived — including their conscious pain and suffering and medical expenses before death. Pursuing both claims together, correctly, is how families recover full compensation rather than a fraction of it.

Deadlines and Special Rules Families Should Know

Texas generally allows two years from the date of death to file, but the clock and the claim have traps: if no eligible family member files within three months, the estate's executor may file instead; claims against governmental entities require formal notice within months, not years; and evidence in fatal truck and workplace cases can lawfully be destroyed early in that window. Talking to a wrongful death attorney quickly costs nothing and protects everything.

Fatal Drunk Driving Crashes: The Dual-Defendant Strategy

When a drunk driver kills, Texas dram shop law (Alcoholic Beverage Code §2.02) can make the bar or restaurant that overserved an obviously intoxicated patron liable alongside the driver. McKay Law pursues both — the driver and the establishment — which adds a commercial insurance policy to the case and holds every responsible party accountable. It's a strategy we've used for grieving East Texas families from Sulphur Springs to Tyler.

Proving a Texas Wrongful Death Claim

A wrongful death claim is, at its core, the injury claim your loved one could have brought if they had survived. We must prove the defendant owed a duty of care, breached it through negligence or wrongful conduct, and that the breach caused the death and your family's damages. In practice, that means the same intensive evidence work as our injury cases — crash reconstruction, black-box downloads in trucking deaths, premises inspection records, toxicology and bar receipts in drunk-driving deaths, safety-rule violations in workplace fatalities — carried out with the added care these cases deserve. Where the conduct rises to gross negligence, Texas allows exemplary damages against the wrongdoer, and we pursue them.

What Compensation Covers — For Each Family Member

Texas wrongful death damages are personal to each survivor, not a single lump the family splits by guesswork. A surviving spouse may recover for lost companionship, lost household support and earnings, and mental anguish. Children — including adult children — recover for the loss of their parent's care, counsel, and support. Parents who lose a child recover for their own devastating loss. The survival action adds the estate's damages: your loved one's medical bills, funeral and burial expenses, and their conscious pain and suffering before death. Presenting each survivor's damages fully and separately, with testimony and expert support, is how these cases reach the values they deserve — like our $6,000,000 truck-accident wrongful death recovery and our $750,000 recovery for the Savage family.

What Working With Us Looks Like During a Loss

Families come to us at the worst moment of their lives, and we've built our process around that reality. You'll have direct access to your legal team — clients routinely tell us they were surprised to have Lindsey's own number. We handle every insurance company, creditor, and investigator contact so your family doesn't have to. We coordinate with any related criminal prosecution without waiting on it: the civil claim proceeds on its own track, and a criminal conviction isn't required for civil recovery, which uses the lower "preponderance of the evidence" standard. And we prepare every case for trial while remaining open to a settlement that fully honors your loss — the decision to accept any offer always remains yours.

Fatal Accident Types We Handle Across Texas

Trucking and 18-wheeler fatalities are the largest share of our wrongful death practice — the physics of an 80,000-pound vehicle leave families grieving and carriers lawyered-up within hours, which is why our $6,000,000 recovery began with same-week evidence preservation. Drunk-driving deaths add the dram shop dimension: the bar that overserved becomes a second defendant with commercial coverage. Workplace and industrial fatalities — construction falls, oilfield incidents in the East Texas fields, equipment failures — involve OSHA findings, non-subscriber employers, and third-party contractors whose liability survives even where workers' comp applies. Premises deaths, including drownings and structural failures like the stairwell collapse behind one of our major recoveries, turn on what the owner knew. Medical negligence and defective product deaths demand expert-heavy litigation against institutional defendants. Each category has its own law, its own evidence, and its own defense bar — and we've faced all of them.

Settlement, Trial, and the Timeline Families Should Expect

Most wrongful death cases resolve by settlement — but the settlements that honor a life come from trial-ready cases. Expect an intensive first ninety days of evidence preservation and investigation while we shield your family from insurer contact; a damages phase where each survivor's losses are documented with care; a formal demand and structured negotiation; and, where the defense won't pay full value, suit and litigation that we prepare for from the first day. Cases involving clear liability may resolve within a year; contested trucking and institutional cases often run eighteen to thirty months. Two promises hold throughout: your family decides whether any offer is accepted, and you pay nothing at any point unless we win. Settlement proceeds for minor children are protected through court approval and structured arrangements, and we help families plan for that process too.

Why Grieving Families Trust McKay Law

Wrongful death work is the most serious thing a personal injury firm does, and our approach reflects it. Families get a single, senior point of contact — not a case-manager carousel — and Lindsey McKay's personal involvement in every fatal-injury case. We front all case costs, so pursuing justice never adds financial strain to grief, and we charge nothing at any stage unless we recover. We move immediately on evidence while handling every external contact — insurers, investigators, media in high-profile crashes — so your family's only obligations are to each other. And our record in fatal cases speaks plainly: a $6,000,000 truck-accident recovery, a $750,000 train-related recovery, a $350,000 recovery in a contested-liability death, and the trust of East Texas families reflected in hundreds of five-star reviews. McKay Law has been recognized as East Texas's premier wrongful death advocate; we work every day to deserve it.

Answers to the Questions Families Ask First

Two concerns bring families through our door before any legal question: Can we afford this? and Will this consume our lives? The answers are built into how we practice. Every wrongful death case is handled on pure contingency — we advance all case costs, from expert witnesses to court fees, and if there is no recovery, you owe nothing at all. And the burden of the case sits with us, not you: we handle the insurers, the paperwork, the depositions scheduling, and the court dates, involving your family only where your voice genuinely matters — telling the story of the person you lost. Many families also worry that pursuing a claim dishonors their loved one's memory. Our clients consistently come to see it the opposite way: the civil justice system is the one forum where a family can force accountability, change dangerous conduct, and secure the future their loved one was building for them. That is not opportunism. It is stewardship.

Evidence That Wins Fatal-Injury Cases

Because the person who could tell the story is gone, wrongful death cases lean harder on physical and documentary evidence than any other claim we handle. In fatal crashes: the CR-3 and any DPS or commercial-vehicle inspection reports, event data recorder downloads from every vehicle, scene photogrammetry before the roadway is reopened and repaved, 911 audio, and medical examiner findings that establish conscious pain and suffering for the survival claim. In workplace deaths: OSHA citations, safety-meeting records, equipment maintenance logs, and co-worker testimony secured before employer pressure sets in. In premises deaths: inspection histories, prior-incident records, and code-compliance documentation. We also build the life that was lost — employment records, tax returns, and testimony from family, employers, and friends that turns "the decedent" back into the parent, spouse, and provider the jury must understand. Every category of this evidence decays or disappears with time, which is why the first weeks after a loss, as impossible as they feel, are also when the case is preserved.

Your Questions, Answered