Monroe Wrongful Death Lawyers

Louisiana provides two causes of action when a person dies due to another’s fault. A wrongful death action under La. C.C. art. 2315.2 compensates surviving family members for their own losses caused by the death. A survival action under La. C.C. art. 2315.1 allows recovery of the damages the deceased suffered between the time of injury and death.

The two are distinct claims with different damages, and each eligible family member in the highest surviving class has a wrongful death claim for their own loss. Both can be brought in the same lawsuit and tried together.

La. C.C. art. 2315.2 ranks the relatives who may bring a wrongful death claim. The surviving spouse and children come first. If no spouse or child survives, the right passes to the parents, then the siblings, then the grandparents. Only the highest class with a living member may file; no one in a lower class can sue while someone in a higher class is alive.

Louisiana courts enforce this order strictly. A parent of the deceased cannot file while an adult child is alive, however close the parent was to the deceased and whether or not the child means to file. Article 2315.1 applies the same order to the survival action.

The family has to prove what any Louisiana negligence claim under La. C.C. art. 2315 requires: the defendant owed a duty, breached it, and the breach caused the death. Under La. C.C. art. 2323, the deceased person’s own share of fault reduces the recovery proportionally. For deaths from accidents on or after January 1, 2026, a decedent found 51 percent or more at fault bars recovery entirely under Act 15 of the 2025 Regular Session (HB 431).

The proof usually comes from the police or sheriff’s crash report, the hospital records, the autopsy and coroner’s findings, witness statements, and testimony from an accident reconstruction expert. Several of those records and witness accounts are time-sensitive and need to be preserved.

If the death followed a wreck, our Monroe car accident lawyer page covers the crash claim, and our Monroe truck accident page covers a wreck with a commercial truck. If the death happened on the job, see our Monroe workers’ compensation page. For an injury that was not fatal, start with our Monroe personal injury page.

The wrongful death action under La. C.C. art. 2315.2 pays the family for loss of love, affection and companionship, loss of services, loss of financial support, and funeral and burial expenses.

The survival action under La. C.C. art. 2315.1 pays for what the deceased went through from injury to death: pain and suffering, mental anguish, medical expenses incurred before death, and lost earnings. How long your loved one stayed conscious, and how much suffering the medical records document, are the main proof of these damages.

Outside medical malpractice and claims against public bodies, Louisiana puts no cap on wrongful death or survival damages. A medical malpractice wrongful death claim against a qualified health care provider is subject to the $500,000 cap under La. R.S. 40:1231.2. A claim against Ouachita Parish or the City of Monroe is subject to the $500,000 governmental liability cap under La. R.S. 13:5106, which does not count medical care, lost earnings, or loss of support.

Louisiana calls the deadline to sue the prescriptive period. For both the wrongful death action (La. C.C. art. 2315.2) and the survival action (La. C.C. art. 2315.1), it is the longer of one year from the date of death or two years from the day the injury was sustained. Medical malpractice is the exception: a malpractice wrongful death action prescribes one year from the date of death, and a malpractice survival action follows the malpractice deadline in La. R.S. 9:5628.

Once filed, most wrongful death cases in Monroe proceed through discovery, expert depositions, a pretrial conference, and either settlement or jury trial.