Who can recover damages for wrongful death?
This, too, varies from state to state. For example, in Texas, the claim for wrongful death is for the benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased. In some states it is narrower than that. For example, in one of our cases in North Dakota the recovery was limited to the surviving spouse, as long as all children of the decedent were also children of the spouse. But in others, it can include siblings or other relatives. We have to carefully examine the relevant law to decide in each case. Fortunately, with good local counsel in other states and access to computerized legal research, we can get a handle on this pretty quickly.
