California puts a two-year deadline on most wrongful death lawsuits and a six-month deadline on claims against public agencies. Families who assume the longer number applies to a crash involving a city bus, a county road defect, or a public hospital lose the case before anyone reviews the facts.
California’s wrongful death statute is compact but unusually technical. Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 defines exactly who may sue, section 377.61 defines what they may recover, and a separate line of law governs the estate’s own claim for what the decedent went through before dying. Getting the wrong party on the caption, or omitting an heir, causes procedural problems that can take months to fix. Most families work with a California wrongful death lawyer for that reason alone, before any question of settlement value comes up.
Here is the sequence, in the order it actually happens.
Step One: Determine Who Has Standing Under Section 377.60
California does not let any grieving relative file. The statute creates a defined group, and everyone outside it has no claim regardless of how close the relationship was.
The Primary Class
The surviving spouse, the surviving registered domestic partner, the decedent’s children, and the issue of any deceased child stand first. If none of those people exist, standing passes to whoever would be entitled to the decedent’s property by intestate succession, which typically means parents, then siblings, and outward from there.
Claimants Who Must Prove Dependency
Section 377.60 also extends standing to several categories of people who were financially dependent on the decedent: a putative spouse and that person’s children, stepchildren, parents, and in some circumstances a legal guardian who was dependent on the decedent and where no other qualifying relatives exist. Dependency is a fact question. Bank records, tax returns showing a claimed dependent, shared leases, and evidence of regular financial contribution are what carry it. Note what is missing from the list. Unmarried partners who are not registered domestic partners and not putative spouses generally have no standing in California, no matter how long the relationship lasted.
Step Two: Comply With the One Action Rule
California treats wrongful death as a single, joint, indivisible cause of action. All heirs with standing must be joined in one lawsuit; there is no filing separate suits by branch of the family. If an heir refuses to participate or cannot be located, the accepted practice is to name that person as a nominal defendant so the court has jurisdiction over everyone with an interest.
This has a downstream consequence people rarely anticipate. A California jury returns a single lump-sum wrongful death verdict rather than assigning separate amounts to each heir. Apportionment among the heirs happens afterward, by agreement or by the court, and it is decided on the basis of each heir’s actual loss. A minor child who lost daily care and support will typically receive a larger share than an adult child who lived out of state, and that allocation can become contested litigation among family members.
Step Three: Recognize That There Are Two Claims
The wrongful death claim and the survival claim are separate, are governed by different statutes, and compensate different losses. Filing only one leaves money on the table.
| Wrongful death claim | Survival action | |
|---|---|---|
| Governing law | Code of Civil Procedure sections 377.60 and 377.61 | Code of Civil Procedure sections 377.30 and 377.34 |
| Plaintiff | Statutory heirs listed in section 377.60 | The decedent’s personal representative or successor in interest |
| What it compensates | The heirs’ loss of financial support, gifts and benefits, household services, and loss of love, companionship, comfort, care, and society | Losses the decedent personally sustained before death, such as medical expenses and lost earnings |
| Punitive damages | Not available in the wrongful death claim | Available where the underlying conduct supports them |
| Where proceeds go | To the heirs, apportioned by agreement or court order | Into the estate, subject to creditors and distribution under the will or intestacy |
One point deserves specific attention. Section 377.34 historically prevented an estate from recovering the decedent’s own pain and suffering, which made an instantaneous death cheaper for a defendant than a survivable injury. The Legislature changed that through Senate Bill 447 for a defined window of actions and has revisited the sunset date since. Because the rule turns on when the action was filed, confirm the version in force for your filing date; the difference can be very large in a case involving a prolonged period of conscious suffering.
Step Four: Identify Every Deadline That Applies
The general rule is two years from the date of death under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. Several exceptions run shorter, and they are the ones that end cases.
- Public entities. Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim to be presented to the public entity within six months of the accrual of a death or injury claim. Once the entity rejects it, section 945.6 generally gives you only six more months to file suit. This applies to city and county governments, school districts, transit agencies, public hospitals, and the state.
- Medical negligence. Section 340.5 imposes its own limitations structure, generally one year from discovery of the injury and no more than three years from the injury itself, with narrow exceptions for fraud, concealment, and foreign objects.
- Minors as heirs. California does not toll the wrongful death limitations period for minor heirs in the way many people assume, and the one action rule means a delayed filing by one heir can jeopardize the whole claim.
- Product and vehicle cases with out-of-state defendants. Service and jurisdiction issues do not extend the deadline; only filing does.
File the government claim even if you are unsure whether an agency is involved. A six-month claim costs almost nothing to present and preserves a right you cannot recover once it lapses.
Step Five: Understand What a California Jury May and May Not Award
The standard jury instruction on wrongful death damages is precise about the boundary. Economic damages include the financial support the decedent would have contributed to the family during their life expectancy, the loss of gifts or benefits the heirs expected to receive, funeral and burial expenses, and the reasonable value of household services the decedent would have provided. Non-economic damages include the loss of the decedent’s love, companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, society, and moral support, and for a spouse the loss of the enjoyment of sexual relations.
What the jury may not award is compensation for the heirs’ grief, sorrow, or mental anguish. That distinction sounds artificial to families, and it is the single most common misunderstanding in a California wrongful death trial. The award compensates what the relationship would have given the survivor going forward, not the pain of the loss itself.
Two other rules shape the number. California applies pure comparative fault, so the decedent’s own share of responsibility reduces the award proportionally without barring it. And under Civil Code section 1431.2, adopted by Proposition 51, multiple defendants are jointly liable for economic damages but only severally liable for non-economic damages in proportion to their own fault, which is why apportioning fault among defendants matters so much at trial.
In medical negligence cases, the statutory cap on non-economic damages now steps upward on a schedule: for wrongful death claims it began at $500,000 for claims arising on or after January 1, 2023 and increases by $50,000 each January until it reaches $1 million. Economic damages are not capped.
Step Six: Filing and the Path Through the Case
- Retain counsel and send preservation letters for vehicle data, surveillance video, employment records, and medical records within the first weeks.
- Open a probate estate or establish successor-in-interest status if a survival claim will be pursued, which requires a declaration under Code of Civil Procedure section 377.32.
- Present any required government claim within six months.
- File the complaint in the superior court of the county where the defendant resides or where the incident occurred, joining all heirs.
- Serve defendants and proceed through written discovery, depositions, and expert exchange under Code of Civil Procedure section 2034.
- Attend mediation, which most California superior courts effectively require before trial.
- Obtain court approval of any settlement involving a minor, and resolve Medi-Cal, Medicare, and health plan liens before disbursement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can an unmarried partner file a wrongful death claim in California?
Generally no, unless the partner was a registered domestic partner or qualifies as a putative spouse, meaning they genuinely and reasonably believed a valid marriage existed. Long-term cohabitation alone does not create standing under section 377.60. Partners in this position sometimes have other options, such as a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim if they witnessed the death, but that is a different claim with its own strict requirements.
Do all the heirs have to agree to file?
No, but all must be included. Because California treats wrongful death as one indivisible action, an heir who does not want to participate is named as a nominal defendant so the court can resolve everyone’s interest at once. That heir may still receive an apportioned share. What cannot happen is two separate lawsuits over the same death.
How is the money divided among the heirs?
By agreement among the heirs, or if they cannot agree, by the judge. The jury awards a single lump sum without dividing it. The court then allocates based on each heir’s individual loss, weighing factors such as dependency, the closeness and frequency of the relationship, and the support the decedent actually provided. Disputed apportionments are decided at a separate hearing.
What if the death happened at work?
Workers compensation is usually the exclusive remedy against the employer, providing statutory death benefits rather than tort damages. However, a wrongful death lawsuit may still lie against a third party, such as the manufacturer of defective equipment, a subcontractor on a jobsite, or a driver who caused a work-related crash. Third-party claims are common in construction and transportation deaths.
How long will the case take?
A clear-liability claim against an insured driver may resolve in several months without a lawsuit. Filed cases in busy California counties commonly take eighteen months to three years to reach trial, and medical negligence and product liability cases sit at the longer end because of expert discovery. Government claim procedures add months at the front.
What to Do First
Order several certified copies of the death certificate and calendar the six-month government claim deadline today, even if you do not yet know whether a public entity was involved. Then have a lawyer send evidence preservation letters within the first two weeks, while vehicle data recorders, surveillance footage, and cell phone records still exist. Standing and deadlines are the two things a California wrongful death case cannot survive losing, and both are decided in the first months.
This article is general information about California wrongful death procedure and is not legal advice; consult a licensed California attorney about your own situation.
