California Wrongful Death Settlement Calculator
Estimate a wrongful death settlement under California law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own comparative fault rule and damages ceilings, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What California law does to your claim
Four things in state law shape a wrongful death claim: how long you have to file, who the state's wrongful death statute says brings the action, the state's comparative fault rule, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
California uses pure comparative fault. Recovery is reduced by the claimant's share of fault with no threshold that bars a claim.
Li v. Yellow Cab Co., 13 Cal. 3d 804 (1975)·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
The action may be brought by the people the section lists, or by the decedent's personal representative on their behalf: the surviving spouse, domestic partner, children and issue of deceased children (or, if there is no surviving issue, those who would inherit by intestate succession); if they were dependent on the decedent, the putative spouse, the putative spouse's children, stepchildren, parents, or legal guardians where the parents are deceased; and a minor who lived in the decedent's household for the previous 180 days and depended on the decedent for half or more of their support. Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 377.60(a), (b)(1), (c) reads: “A cause of action for the death of a person caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another may be asserted by any of the following persons or by the decedent’s personal representative on their behalf:” and “(a) The decedent’s surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and issue of deceased children, or, if there is no surviving issue of the decedent, the persons, including the surviving spouse or domestic partner, who would be entitled to the property of the decedent by intestate succession.” and “(b) (1) Whether or not qualified under subdivision (a), if they were dependent on the decedent, the putative spouse, children of the putative spouse, stepchildren, parents, or the legal guardians of the decedent if the parents are deceased.” and “(c) A minor, whether or not qualified under subdivision (a) or (b), if, at the time of the decedent’s death, the minor resided for the previous 180 days in the decedent’s household and was dependent on the decedent for one-half or more of the minor’s support.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of California wrongful death law, and how courts have applied it or divided a recovery is not stated here. Quoted from the operator's text copy of the official page, made on 2026-10-17 by reading the page's text in a browser and saving it as a PDF; it is not a print of the page.
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 377.60(a), (b)(1), (c)·Last reviewed 2026-10-17
None on record means our verified data holds no figure of this kind for this state. It is not a finding that no limit could apply to your claim.
What partial fault costs you in California
The same claim, fracture with surgery, several months of recovery, run through the calculator above four times, with nothing changed but the share of fault assigned to the claimant. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these cases are worth.
One case, run through the calculator above four times with only the claimant's share of fault changed, under California law. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. These shares illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your own fault.
Every California deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the California periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 335.1·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorCal. Civ. Proc. Code 340.5 requires filing by the earlier of 1 year after the claimant discovers the injury or 3 years after the injury itself. We publish the 1-year discovery period. A 90-day notice of intent is also required.
Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 340.5·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the medical malpractice calculatorCal. Civ. Proc. Code § 335.1·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorCal. Lab. Code § 5405·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorCal. Civ. Proc. Code § 335.1·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorCal. Civ. Proc. Code § 335.1; Cal. Civ. Code § 3342·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the dog bite calculatorCalifornia against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 11 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply the pure comparative negligence rule, and California is one of them.
- Its 2 years to file is the same as the most common deadline in the country, which 32 jurisdictions use. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 3 years.
- We have read the official text of 37 jurisdictions' wrongful death statutes. In 20 the personal representative brings the action, in 7 family members or the personal representative may, and the other 10 name a family member, a trustee or a representative, or name who benefits rather than who sues. California's is one of the 7 where family members or the personal representative may.
- 23 of the 51 jurisdictions limit medical malpractice non-economic damages in our data, and California is one of them at $470,000, so a large non-economic award can be reduced to it.
Comparisons are drawn from the legal levers that actually move a case value, not from closed-case data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology
California calculators
California Wrongful Death questions
Every document behind our state injury law figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our State Injury Law research sources page.