What Families Should Do After a Fatal Crash in Texas

Before Anything Else

If you found this page because someone you love was killed in a crash, we are deeply sorry. Nothing written here is meant to rush you, and nothing about a legal claim matters more than your family right now.

This guide exists because grieving families are often forced to make practical decisions — about the vehicle, the insurance calls, the paperwork — at the worst possible time, without anyone explaining what those decisions mean. The goal here is simple: to tell you plainly what protects your family's rights, what can quietly damage them, and what Texas law actually provides, so that whatever choices you make are informed ones.

You do not need to absorb all of this today. If it is easier, the single most protective step is near the top: keep the vehicle and the evidence intact, and let one trusted person handle the phone calls.

The First Days: Steps That Protect Your Family

In the days after a fatal crash, several things are happening at once — an investigation by law enforcement, contact from insurance companies, and decisions about the vehicle. These steps preserve your family's position through all of it:

1. Ask that the vehicle be preserved, not repaired or released. The vehicle itself is often the most important piece of physical evidence. Modern cars and trucks record electronic data about speed, braking, and impact. Once a vehicle is repaired, salvaged, or crushed, that evidence is gone permanently. Tell the storage yard and your insurer, in writing if possible, that the vehicle must be preserved.
2. Get the crash report when it becomes available. For crashes involving a death, Texas officers complete a Texas Peace Officer's Crash Report (Form CR-3). It is typically available through TxDOT's Crash Records Information System within about two weeks. The report identifies drivers, insurers, witnesses, and the investigating officer's initial conclusions — which are a starting point, not the final word.
3. Designate one point of contact for insurance calls. Adjusters will call quickly, sometimes within a day or two. Grief is not the state of mind in which to answer recorded questions. It is entirely appropriate to say: "Our family is not prepared to discuss this. Please put your questions in writing." You are not required to give the at-fault side's insurer a recorded statement.
4. Keep everything, even what seems minor. The names of witnesses. Photos anyone took. Medical and EMS records. Funeral and burial invoices. Your loved one's phone, if it was in the vehicle. A simple folder — physical or digital — started now saves enormous difficulty later.
5. Be careful with social media. Posts, memorials, and comments made in grief can be pulled out of context later by defense insurers. It is safest for close family members to say little publicly about the crash itself while the facts are still being established.
6. Do not sign anything from an insurance company without review. Early paperwork sometimes includes broad medical authorizations or releases with lasting legal effect. There is no deadline that requires a family to sign anything in the first days or weeks.

Who Can Bring a Wrongful Death Claim in Texas

Texas law is specific about this. Under the Texas Wrongful Death Act, found in Chapter 71 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a wrongful death claim belongs to three groups of people:

• The surviving spouse — including a common-law spouse where the marriage can be established.
• The children — including adult children and legally adopted children.
• The parents — including adoptive parents.

Siblings, grandparents, stepchildren who were never adopted, and unmarried partners are not eligible under the statute, no matter how close the relationship was. Any one of the eligible family members may file for the benefit of all of them. If no eligible family member files within three months of the death, the executor or administrator of the estate is generally required to bring the claim — unless every eligible family member asks that it not be filed.

Families sometimes worry that pursuing a claim means the family must agree on everything or act as one. In practice, the claim is brought for the benefit of all statutory beneficiaries, and the interests of each — a spouse, children from a prior marriage, surviving parents — are accounted for within it.

Two Claims, Not One: Wrongful Death and Survival

Texas actually recognizes two separate claims after a fatal accident, and families are often surprised to learn the difference:

The wrongful death claim belongs to the family. It compensates the spouse, children, and parents for their own losses — the financial support, care, companionship, and guidance the person would have provided, and the family's own mental anguish.

The survival claim belongs to your loved one's estate. It is the claim the person themselves would have had if they had lived — their conscious pain and suffering before death, their medical expenses, and funeral and burial costs. It passes through the estate to the heirs.

Both claims typically proceed together, but they are valued differently and can involve different evidence. A case handled well accounts for both from the beginning.

What Compensation Can Cover

No amount of money restores what was taken, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. What a wrongful death recovery actually does is prevent the loss from becoming a financial catastrophe on top of a human one, and it forces accountability from the person or company responsible. Texas law allows recovery for:

• Lost earning capacity and financial support — the income, benefits, and household contributions your loved one would have provided over a lifetime.
• Loss of companionship and society — the loss of the relationship itself: love, comfort, and the daily presence of a spouse, parent, or child.
• Mental anguish — the family's own emotional suffering.
• Loss of care, counsel, and guidance — particularly significant for children who lose a parent.
• Loss of inheritance — what the person would likely have accumulated and passed on.
• Medical, funeral, and burial expenses — through the survival claim.

Where a death results from gross negligence — conduct that involves an extreme degree of risk and conscious indifference to it, such as a trucking company knowingly putting a fatigued or unqualified driver on the road, or a provider knowingly over-serving an obviously intoxicated patron — Texas law also permits exemplary damages, which exist to punish and deter rather than merely compensate.

Why the Other Side Starts Working Immediately

This is the part few families are told. In serious and fatal crashes — especially those involving 18-wheelers and commercial vehicles — the at-fault side's insurer often has investigators and defense counsel involved within hours. They may photograph the scene, download vehicle data, interview witnesses, and begin shaping the narrative of the crash before the funeral has taken place.

That is not paranoia; it is how the industry works. A commercial insurer facing a potential seven-figure claim treats the first days as decisive. Meanwhile, evidence favorable to your family sits unprotected: a trucking company's driver logs and electronic records are only required to be kept for a matter of months, nearby business cameras record over their own footage in days or weeks, and the vehicles themselves move toward salvage.

The way families level this imbalance is early, independent investigation — a preservation demand (sometimes called a spoliation letter) served on the responsible company, prompt inspection and download of vehicle data, and witness statements taken while memories are fresh. If a commercial vehicle was involved, our guide on why 18-wheeler cases demand immediate investigation explains exactly what records exist and how quickly they can lawfully disappear.

Deadlines: The Two-Year Statute and the Shorter Clocks

Texas generally gives families two years from the date of death to file a wrongful death lawsuit. Two years sounds like a long time. In practice, three shorter clocks matter more:

1. Government notice deadlines. If the crash involved a city, county, or state vehicle or employee — or a dangerous condition of a public road — the Texas Tort Claims Act requires formal written notice within six months, and some city charters shorten that to a few months or less. Missing the notice deadline can end the claim regardless of the two-year statute.
2. Evidence retention clocks. As described above, key records in commercial vehicle cases can be lawfully destroyed within months if no preservation demand is made.
3. The practical clock. Witnesses move, scenes change, and vehicles are salvaged. A case investigated in month one is simply stronger than the same case investigated in month twenty.

There are also circumstances that can pause or alter the deadline — for example, claims involving minor children have special rules. The safe course is never to assume; it is to have the specific deadlines for your family's situation confirmed early, even if you decide to do nothing else for a while.

How These Cases Are Built

Michael A. Crozier, Esq. represents families across Dallas and throughout Texas in wrongful death cases arising from 18-wheeler and commercial vehicle crashes, car accidents, workplace incidents, and other preventable tragedies. The approach is the same in every case: treat it, from the first day, as one that may need to be tried.

That means preservation demands go out immediately. It means independent accident reconstruction where the facts warrant it, downloads of vehicle electronic data, and a full picture of the responsible company's safety history — not just the police report. It means the insurance companies deal with a firm that is preparing for a courtroom, which is precisely what changes how they value a claim. And it means your family has one steady point of contact who explains each step in plain English, so the process never adds confusion to grief.

Frequently Asked Questions

This guide provides general information about Texas law and is not legal advice for any specific situation. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. If your family has lost someone in a crash, please speak with a licensed Texas attorney about the facts of your case.