Louisiana Wrongful Death Settlement Calculator
Estimate a wrongful death settlement under Louisiana 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 Louisiana 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.
The 1 year shown is the earliest a Louisiana wrongful-death deadline can fall, not the deadline itself, because the year runs from the death and a death can come after the injury. La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(B) reads: "The right of action granted by this Article prescribes one year from the death of the deceased or two years from the day that injury or damage is sustained, whichever is longer." That wording took effect August 1, 2025 under Acts 2025, No. 176, and the Legislature's digest of the Act says: "Prior law provided a prescriptive period of one year for wrongful death actions." For a death caused by medical malpractice, art. 2315.2(F) reads: "The right of action granted by this Article for medical malpractice actions prescribes one year from the death of the deceased." Whether the two-year period reaches a death before August 1, 2025 is not established here. A date one year after the injury is the earliest your deadline can be, not the date it falls. Ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(B)·Last reviewed 2026-09-24
Louisiana uses pure comparative fault.
La. Civ. Code art. 2323·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
If a person dies due to the fault of another, suit may be brought by the surviving spouse and children, or either; if none survives, by the surviving parents; if none of those, by the surviving brothers and sisters; and if none of those, by the surviving grandparents. La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(A) reads: “A. If a person dies due to the fault of another, suit may be brought by the following persons to recover damages which they sustained as a result of the death: (1) The surviving spouse and child or children of the deceased, or either the spouse or the child or children. (2) The surviving father and mother of the deceased, or either of them if he left no spouse or child surviving. (3) The surviving brothers and sisters of the deceased, or any of them, if he left no spouse, child, or parent surviving. (4) The surviving grandfathers and grandmothers of the deceased, or any of them, if he left no spouse, child, parent, or sibling surviving.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Louisiana wrongful death law, and how courts have applied it or divided a recovery is not stated here.
La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(A)·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 Louisiana
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 Louisiana 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 Louisiana deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Louisiana 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.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1 reads: "Delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years." Its source note reads: "Acts 2024, No. 423, §1, eff. July 1, 2024." The one-year article it replaced is printed as: "Art. 3492. Repealed by Acts 2024, No. 423, §2, eff. July 1, 2024." Which period governs an injury sustained before July 1, 2024 is not established here: the Act's transition rule was not read. If your injury was before that date, ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the personal injury calculatorLa. Rev. Stat. 9:5628 requires filing within 1 year of the act or of discovery, and never more than 3 years from the act. We publish the 1-year period. Qualified-provider claims also go to a medical review panel first.
La. Rev. Stat. 9:5628·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the medical malpractice calculatorThe 1 year shown is the earliest a Louisiana wrongful-death deadline can fall, not the deadline itself, because the year runs from the death and a death can come after the injury. La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(B) reads: "The right of action granted by this Article prescribes one year from the death of the deceased or two years from the day that injury or damage is sustained, whichever is longer." That wording took effect August 1, 2025 under Acts 2025, No. 176, and the Legislature's digest of the Act says: "Prior law provided a prescriptive period of one year for wrongful death actions." For a death caused by medical malpractice, art. 2315.2(F) reads: "The right of action granted by this Article for medical malpractice actions prescribes one year from the death of the deceased." Whether the two-year period reaches a death before August 1, 2025 is not established here. A date one year after the injury is the earliest your deadline can be, not the date it falls. Ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 2315.2(B)·Last reviewed 2026-09-24
Open the wrongful death calculatorLa. Rev. Stat. § 23:1209·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorLa. Civ. Code art. 3493.1 reads: "Delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years." Its source note reads: "Acts 2024, No. 423, §1, eff. July 1, 2024." The one-year article it replaced is printed as: "Art. 3492. Repealed by Acts 2024, No. 423, §2, eff. July 1, 2024." Which period governs an injury sustained before July 1, 2024 is not established here: the Act's transition rule was not read. If your injury was before that date, ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code art. 3493.1·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the slip and fall calculatorLa. Civ. Code art. 3493.1 reads: "Delictual actions are subject to a liberative prescription of two years." Its source note reads: "Acts 2024, No. 423, §1, eff. July 1, 2024." The one-year article it replaced is printed as: "Art. 3492. Repealed by Acts 2024, No. 423, §2, eff. July 1, 2024." Which period governs an injury sustained before July 1, 2024 is not established here: the Act's transition rule was not read. If your injury was before that date, ask a licensed Louisiana attorney which period applies to your claim.
La. Civ. Code arts. 2315, 2317.1, 2321; art. 3493.1·Last reviewed 2026-07-28
Open the dog bite calculatorLouisiana 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 Louisiana is one of them.
- Louisiana allows at least 1 year to file, and that is the earliest its deadline can fall rather than a fixed limit, because the governing provision also runs from a later event. This page does not set that against the 2 years that 32 jurisdictions publish, because for those we hold a period and no later event, which is a different claim. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 3 years.
- We have read the official text of 40 jurisdictions' wrongful death statutes. In 21 the personal representative brings the action, in 7 family members or the personal representative may, and the other 12 name a family member, a trustee or a representative, or name who benefits rather than who sues. Louisiana's is one of the other 12.
- 23 of the 51 jurisdictions limit medical malpractice non-economic damages in our data and Louisiana is not among them, so an estimate here is not held down by a ceiling we hold.
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
Louisiana calculators
Louisiana 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.