One death can produce two claims. The family's claim looks forward at what the household lost. The survival action looks backward at what was done to the person who died, and it belongs to the estate.
Call (512) 729-9561No obligation · Written for Austin · Hays County
Six boxes, about thirty seconds. You pick when to be called back, and that is when the phone rings.
Or call (512) 729-9561Section 71.021 provides that a cause of action for personal injury to the health, reputation or person of an injured individual does not abate because of the death, and that it survives in favor of the heirs, the legal representatives and the estate. The injured person's own losses are the subject: the medical charges incurred before death, conscious physical pain and mental anguish, lost earnings during the period of injury, and disfigurement or impairment they lived with. A wrongful death claim under section 71.004 covers different ground and reaches a different set of people, so pleading one label for both is how items get quietly dropped.
Section 71.003(a) conditions the death claim on the injured individual having been entitled to sue had they lived, and the survival action is that very claim carried forward. A release the person signed, a contractual limitation, an expired injury deadline or a statutory defense therefore travels with the claim into the estate. That is why an early review looks at what the person did or signed before death rather than only at how the death occurred.
The two claims are treated differently once money exists. Section 71.011 states that damages recovered in a wrongful death action are not subject to the debts of the deceased. A survival recovery is an asset of the estate, so it moves through estate administration and the claims process that comes with it. Where hospital bills, a funeral balance and other debts are outstanding, the distinction between the two recoveries is not a technicality.
A survival claim usually needs a personal representative or a court-recognized set of heirs before it can be pursued. In this county that is probate work: the two statutory probate courts hear applications to probate a will, applications to declare heirs where there was no will, and the ancillary lawsuits brought by or against a personal representative. The County Clerk's probate division handles filing procedures, citation issuance and the letters that prove authority, and it publishes what each step costs. None of that resolves the underlying liability question. It settles who is allowed to raise it.
Section 16.062 suspends the running of an applicable limitations period for twelve months after the death. Read the second half carefully: if an executor or administrator qualifies before that twelve months expires, the period begins running at the qualification. Opening an estate can therefore restart a clock the family thought was paused. Section 16.001 excludes time under a legal disability, meaning under eighteen or of unsound mind, but disabilities may not be tacked together and one arising after a period begins does not suspend it.
Where the injury involved health care, section 74.051 requires written notice by certified mail to each provider at least 60 days before suit, accompanied by the statutory authorization for release of protected health information, and it tolls the applicable limitations period for 75 days. Subsection (e) is the provision that matters for a survival claim: a request for the records of a deceased person is valid if the authorization is signed by a parent, a spouse or an adult child. Subsection (d) obliges the provider to furnish unaltered copies within 45 days of a request.
Where the Travis County Medical Examiner took the case, that office holds records the hospital chart does not contain. Its published fee schedule charges $25 for an autopsy report and $5 for each investigation of death report, $50 to certify a record, and $30 for a disc of digital images or of x-ray and CT files. The office's own guidance notes that a report can take up to 90 days to finalize where laboratory work is pending, and that a death certificate may be issued with a pending cause in the meantime.
The material above describes how Texas separates a survival action from a wrongful death claim. It is general information rather than legal advice, and it reaches no conclusion about any estate, chart or death. An attorney advertising on this site can address a specific situation.
Survival Action Claim Lawyer in Austin. Call (512) 729-9561 and a Austin lawyer reviews the claim and the deadline that applies. Nothing is signed on that call.
Call (512) 729-9561The City of Austin reports 99 traffic fatalities and 301 serious injuries in 2025, with pedestrian deaths falling from 39 to 30, and estimates that roughly 65 to 75 percent of Austin traffic fatalities occur on state-owned roads.
Why it matters: Road ownership decides which entity is a potential defendant and which notice deadline applies, and the city's 45-day charter claim period is far shorter than the six-month statutory default.
Sources: austintexas.gov · austintexas.gov
The Texas Department of Insurance counted 557 fatal work injuries statewide in 2024 at a rate of 3.9 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, with 128 construction incidents, about 23 percent of the total, and construction or maintenance sites making up 15 percent of fatality locations.
Why it matters: A construction death in an area under active highway reconstruction usually involves several contractors, and chapter 95 requires both retained control and actual knowledge before a property owner is liable.
Sources: tdi.texas.gov · law.justia.com
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 71.021 says a personal-injury cause of action does not abate because the injured person died and survives to the heirs, legal representatives, and estate.
Why it matters: A death-related review may need to distinguish the family's losses from an injury claim that belonged to the person who died. The records and estate questions can differ.
Source: law.justia.com
No obligation · Written for Austin · Hays County