If you are reading this in the first week, we are sorry. Nothing on this page fixes anything. What it can do is tell you plainly what the law actually says, because in the days after a fatal crash families are told a great deal that is not true: that the criminal case will handle it, that a police report decides everything, that a drink or a mistake by the person who died closes the door. None of that is the law. The Vertanous Firm has recovered more than $60 Million for injured Californians and their families, including two separate $2.0 Million wrongful death recoveries in cases other lawyers had written off.
Where to Start
The traffic collision report is one officer's preliminary opinion, written quickly, often before anyone has downloaded a vehicle's data or interviewed a single independent witness. It is not evidence of fault in the way most people assume, it is not the last word, and it is regularly wrong about the thing that matters most. Insurance carriers know this. They also know that a family holding a report that blames their loved one will usually never call a lawyer.
That is the entire strategy. It works often enough that it remains the strategy. This page is part of our complete guide: Pasadena wrongful death lawyer.
A fatal car accident case in California is built the same way any serious case is built, from physical evidence, vehicle data, scene geometry, and independent witnesses, and it is built by someone whose job is to question the first version of the story rather than accept it.
Who Holds the Claim
California does not let just anyone sue for a death. Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 lists who may bring a wrongful death action, beginning with the surviving spouse, domestic partner, and children, and reaching further into the family and to certain dependents when no one in that first group survives. A putative spouse, someone who genuinely believed in good faith that the marriage was valid, may also qualify.
Two practical points families almost never hear. First, the wrongful death claim is generally brought as one action, which means the family should be coordinated rather than filing against each other. Second, there is often a second claim entirely, a survival action belonging to the estate for certain losses the person suffered before death. They are different claims with different rules, and both can matter in a fatal crash.
The Drunk Driver
When the driver who caused the crash was impaired, families are usually told to wait for the criminal proceeding. Waiting is a mistake, and understanding why requires separating two systems that share a courthouse and almost nothing else.
The criminal case belongs to the state. Its purpose is punishment. The prosecutor is not your lawyer, your family does not control the charges, the plea, or the sentence, and restitution ordered by a criminal judge is not the measure of what a civil case is worth. A conviction is not required for a civil claim, and an acquittal does not end one, because the two proceedings ask different questions under different standards of proof.
The civil case belongs to the family. It is where compensation happens, where the defense gets deposed, where the vehicle data gets analyzed, and where the parties who allowed the driver to be on that road get examined. Meanwhile, the evidence that matters civilly is disappearing on its own schedule. Vehicles get released to salvage and crushed. Surveillance video from a business at the corner overwrites in days. Witnesses move. Nothing about the criminal calendar preserves any of it.
We have written about how these claims are actually built: drunk driving injury claims in California.
Example: A family loses a father to a driver arrested for driving under the influence on a Friday night. Told by well-meaning people to let the district attorney work, they wait fourteen months for the criminal case to resolve. By then the defendant's vehicle has been salvaged, the bar's parking lot video is long gone, and two witnesses have moved out of state.
Conclusion: The family still has a claim, but it is a weaker one, built from a police report instead of from evidence. The criminal case never preserved anything, because preserving civil evidence was never its job. The civil investigation should have started in the first week, in parallel, which is exactly what a lawyer is for.
When They Blame Your Loved One
This is the most damaging misunderstanding in wrongful death, and carriers rely on it. California follows pure comparative fault under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804. Fault attributed to the person who died reduces the family's recovery by a percentage. It does not bar the claim.
Read that again, because an adjuster will imply the opposite. A blood alcohol result, a missed signal, a crossing outside a crosswalk, a moment of inattention: each of these is a percentage argument, not a door closing. The question is never only what your loved one did. The question is also what the other driver did, what the road did, what the vehicle did, and what someone else could have prevented.
We know because we have done it. This firm recovered $2.0 Million for a family despite the decedent's blood alcohol level of 0.356, a number most lawyers would treat as the end of the conversation. We recovered another $2.0 Million for a family whose loved one died in a fire he himself ignited, on a theory of preventable conditions: the death did not have to happen, and the parties who could have prevented it did not. In 2026 this firm also obtained a $26 Million stipulated judgment for the wrongful death of a pedestrian crossing the street who was killed by an impaired driver. The sole heir was his mother, who lives with dementia, and the defense argued that her memory loss had erased her grief. We did not accept that a mother's loss expires with her memory, and judgment was entered by stipulation for the full $26,000,000.00 against the individual defendant in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. They do tell you how this firm reads a file that someone else called hopeless. Our longer piece on the subject: wrongful death when the decedent was partly at fault.
Example: A young man is killed riding home late at night when a driver turns left across his path. The report notes his headlight was out and assigns him primary fault. The carrier denies the claim in a two-sentence letter. Reconstruction later shows the turning driver had an unobstructed view for several seconds and was traveling well above the speed appropriate for the intersection.
Conclusion: This is a comparative fault case, not a denial. A jury could assign a share of responsibility to the missing headlight and a larger share to the driver who turned across a lane he could see. Under Li, that allocation reduces the recovery. It does not eliminate it, and the two-sentence denial letter was never the law.
Beyond the Driver
Fatal crashes frequently involve more than the two vehicles in the report, and the additional defendants are often the ones with meaningful coverage:
Identifying every responsible party early is not about volume. It is about the practical reality that a minimum-limits policy on a single driver rarely reflects what a family actually lost, and the parties who can make that difference are found by investigation, not by reading the report.
Told there is no case, or that the policy limit is all there is? A free conversation costs you nothing.
Talk to TomDeadlines
A wrongful death action is generally subject to the two-year deadline in Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. That is the clock most people have heard of, and it is not the dangerous one.
The dangerous one is Government Code section 911.2. If any public entity may share responsibility, the city that owned the intersection, the state agency responsible for the highway, a transit agency, a school district, or a public employee driving on the job, a written government claim is generally due within six months of the death. Six months, while a family is planning a funeral and settling an estate. Miss it and the case against that entity is usually over regardless of how much time remains on the two-year statute.
This is why the single most useful thing a family can do early is have someone identify every potential defendant right away. You do not need to know whether the road was defective. You need someone whose job is to find out before the shortest clock expires.
What to Do
Both of them, if possible. Vehicles carry crash data, and salvage yards crush cars on their own schedule, not yours. A preservation letter in the first week is often the difference.
You owe the other driver's insurer nothing. Grief is not a good state in which to be interviewed by someone trained to build a defense.
Who called you, what they said, who was at the scene, which businesses face the intersection. Camera footage from those businesses often overwrites within days.
Certain claims belong to the estate rather than to family members individually, and having the right person appointed matters to how the case is filed.
Especially the six-month government claim question. This is a phone call, not a project, and it is free.
We handle these cases at the family's pace, not ours. There is no version of this where you are pressured on the worst week of your life. If a call is all you can manage right now, that is enough. Call (626) 888-2223 and talk to Tom directly, in English, Armenian, or Farsi. Related reading: our Pasadena car accident page covers non-fatal crashes, and traumatic brain injury covers the catastrophic-injury cases that survive.
If we don't win, you don't pay.
The consultation is free. The representation is on contingency. If there is no recovery, you owe no attorney fee.
Questions Families Ask
Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 sets out who may bring the claim. In general terms it begins with the surviving spouse, domestic partner, and children, and reaches further into the family and to certain dependents when there is no one in that first group. A putative spouse and that person's children may also qualify. The statute is technical, and one phone call usually answers it.
No. The criminal case belongs to the state and exists to punish. It does not compensate your family, you do not control it, and restitution ordered in a criminal court is not the measure of a civil recovery. The civil wrongful death case is separate, it is yours, and it proceeds on its own timeline whether or not charges are filed or a conviction ever happens.
Yes. California follows pure comparative fault under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804. Fault attributed to the person who died reduces the recovery by a percentage. It does not bar the claim. Insurers lean hard on this because families do not know it, and a file that gets abandoned on that phone call is a file the carrier never has to pay.
A wrongful death action is generally subject to the two-year deadline in Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. If a public entity may be responsible, the road, a government vehicle, or a public employee on the job, a written government claim is generally due within six months under Government Code section 911.2, and missing it can end the case. Deadlines are fact specific. Call before assuming you have time.
Two categories, stated generally. The financial loss to the family, including support the person would have provided, services they performed, and funeral and burial expenses. And the human loss, the companionship, comfort, guidance, and society the family no longer receives. A separate survival action belonging to the estate may also exist for certain losses the person suffered before death.
Client Reviews
Ani A., Glendalevia Yelp"The guy who hit me had a low max coverage. I don't know what magic Vertanous Firm worked, but I got paid for my damages less than a year out from my accident, and was paid three times more than the policy limit."
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