Hollywood Wrongful Death Lawyer

Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60 lists who may sue: the surviving spouse or domestic partner, the children, and — if there is no surviving issue — the people who would be entitled to the property by intestate succession. It also covers certain dependent parents, stepchildren and putative spouses. Sorting out who has standing is often the first question in a Hollywood case, and it is one we handle rather than asking a grieving family to work out.

Code of Civil Procedure § 377.61 sets what the wrongful death claim recovers — including the financial support the person would have provided and the loss of their love, companionship, comfort, care, and guidance. Grief of the survivors is not itself a category of damages under California law.

Code of Civil Procedure § 377.30 lets the decedent's own cause of action pass to the estate's personal representative or successor in interest. Section 377.34 governs what that survival claim recovers — losses and expenses the person sustained before death, and punitive damages where they would have been available.

Because the two claims recover different things, they are pleaded together and the evidence is gathered once. Filing only one of them leaves part of the case on the table.

The general deadline is two years from the death under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. If a public entity may be responsible — a city vehicle, a dangerous roadway condition, a public property — Government Code § 911.2 generally requires a written claim within six months, which arrives far sooner than families expect.

Early also matters for evidence. In Hollywood that means camera footage from hotels, venues and businesses on Sunset, Highland and Hollywood Blvd, which overwrites in days, and the vehicles themselves, which are released and repaired quickly unless someone asks that they be held.