Los Angeles Wrongful Death Attorneys
Compassionate advocacy for families who have lost a loved one to negligence
Did you lose a loved one due to someone else’s negligence? No lawsuit can undo the devastating loss your family has suffered. But a wrongful death claim serves two critical purposes: it holds the responsible party accountable, and it provides financial security for the family members left behind. At Valor Legal Group, we approach wrongful death cases with the gravity they deserve. We understand this is the most difficult time in your life, and we handle every detail so you can focus on your family. Our attorneys have secured over $50 million for families of wrongful death victims, and we fight with the intensity your loved one deserves.
Protecting Your Family’s Rights
Preserve Evidence Immediately
Critical evidence — vehicle data, workplace safety records, medical records, surveillance footage — can be lost or destroyed quickly. An attorney can send preservation letters and begin the investigation before evidence disappears.
Identify All Responsible Parties
Wrongful death cases often involve multiple liable parties. A workplace death may involve the employer, a subcontractor, and an equipment manufacturer. A traffic death may involve the driver, a vehicle manufacturer, and a road maintenance authority.
Understand Your Legal Standing
California law specifies who can file a wrongful death claim: the surviving spouse or domestic partner, children, and in some cases, dependents or presumptive heirs. Understanding your standing is the first step in pursuing justice.
Document the Financial Impact on Your Family
Calculate lost income, benefits, household services, and other financial contributions your loved one provided. Also consider non-economic losses: guidance, companionship, nurturing, and the emotional devastation of the loss.
Common Causes of Wrongful Death
Vehicle Accidents
Car, truck, and motorcycle collisions caused by distracted, impaired, or reckless drivers are the leading cause of wrongful death claims in California.
Medical Malpractice
Surgical errors, misdiagnosis, medication mistakes, and hospital negligence cause thousands of preventable deaths each year in the United States.
Workplace Accidents
Falls from heights, trench collapses, electrocutions, and equipment malfunctions on construction sites and industrial workplaces claim hundreds of lives annually in California.
Defective Products
Faulty vehicle components, dangerous pharmaceutical drugs, malfunctioning medical devices, and defective consumer products that cause fatal injuries.
Nursing Home Neglect
Understaffing, inadequate supervision, medication errors, and failure to prevent falls in elder care facilities that result in the death of a resident.
Pedestrian & Bicycle Fatalities
Drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians and cyclists at crosswalks, intersections, and bike lanes in Los Angeles’s high-traffic corridors.
What Damages Can You Recover?
California wrongful death damages are designed to compensate the surviving family for what they’ve lost — both financially and personally.
The victim’s earning capacity: their age, health, occupation, earning history, and the income they would have provided to the family over their expected lifetime.
Loss of financial support, including salary, benefits, retirement contributions, health insurance, and other economic contributions to the household.
Loss of companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, and moral support that the deceased provided to surviving family members.
Funeral and burial expenses, along with any medical costs incurred between the injury and the victim’s death.
Punitive damages if the death was caused by malice, oppression, or fraud — such as a drunk driver with prior DUI convictions or a company that knowingly concealed safety hazards.
The victim’s pre-death pain and suffering through a companion “survival action,” which is a separate claim filed on behalf of the deceased’s estate.
Related Case Results
$8.2M
Construction Site Death
A worker killed when a retaining wall collapsed due to inadequate shoring on a commercial construction site. The general contractor had been cited for similar violations twice before.
$5.7M
Medical Malpractice
Patient died after emergency room physicians failed to diagnose and treat a pulmonary embolism, despite textbook symptoms and family members’ repeated pleas for attention.
$3.4M
DUI Accident
Father of three killed by a drunk driver running a red light at 65 mph in a 35 mph zone. The driver had two prior DUI convictions.
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.