The two-year period most people have heard about is only one of the deadlines that can govern a Texas death case, and it is often not the earliest one. Notice rules, chapter-specific limitations provisions and record retention periods all run on their own clocks.
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Six boxes, about thirty seconds. You pick when to be called back, and that is when the phone rings.
Or call (214) 617-0560Section 16.003(b) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code fixes the period for an action for injury resulting in death at two years from accrual, and then fixes accrual itself at the death of the injured person. Subsection (a) sets the general two-year period for personal injury, which is the provision that governs the survival claim descending from the deceased person's own action.
That distinction can produce two dates from one event, because an injury and a death do not always occur on the same day. Recording the date of death exactly, from the death certificate rather than from memory, is the first defensive step a family can take.
Chapter 16 contains several. Section 16.001 tolls limitations while a person is under a legal disability, defined as being younger than 18 years of age or of unsound mind, and provides that a disability that arises after limitations begins to run does not suspend the period, and that disabilities may not be tacked. Section 16.063 suspends the running of the period for any time that a person against whom the claim could be maintained is absent from Texas. Section 16.064 allows a claimant whose timely filed action was dismissed because the court lacked jurisdiction to refile in a proper court within 60 days after the dismissal becomes final, subject to the section's conditions.
Each of those is fact-dependent and none should be assumed. They are reasons to have a date analyzed rather than reasons to conclude that more time exists.
Section 71.004(c) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code directs the executor or administrator to bring the action where none of the named relatives has done so within three calendar months after the death, unless all of those relatives request otherwise. It is read as a three-month deadline far more often than it should be. It allocates who brings the action, and it does not shorten anything.
Section 74.251 requires a health care liability claim to be filed within two years of the occurrence of the breach or tort, or of the date the medical or health care treatment that is the subject of the claim is completed, and says so notwithstanding any other law. Subsection (b) is a statute of repose barring a claim more than ten years after the act or omission. The section also gives a minor under twelve until the fourteenth birthday to file.
Section 74.051 adds a moving part in the other direction: notice given as that section requires tolls the applicable limitations period for a period of 75 days. Because the 60-day presuit notice has to be given before filing, the notice date, the tolling period and the underlying limitations date have to be worked out together.
Section 101.101 of the Texas Tort Claims Act requires written notice to the governmental unit within six months of the incident, reasonably describing the damage or injury, the time and place and the incident. The section ratifies charter and ordinance provisions requiring notice within a shorter period, and provides that the requirement does not apply where the unit has actual notice of a death, injury or property damage. Where a city, county, school district, transit authority or hospital district may be involved, this is usually the earliest deadline in the case, and the specific entity's own rule has to be checked.
A family can be entirely inside the two-year period and still be too late for the documents that would have proved the case. A motor carrier's records of duty status are retained for not less than six months from receipt under federal rule, and private security video is frequently overwritten within weeks. Tissue samples held by the Dallas County examiner's office are generally retained for about a year according to the office's own answers.
Suit is filed with the district clerk or the county clerk, and Dallas County lists thirteen civil district courts in the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building. Electronic filing is the norm rather than a counter visit. None of that changes a deadline, but the logistics are worth knowing before the last available week rather than during it.
Texas Wrongful Death Statute of Limitations in Dallas. Call (214) 617-0560 and a Dallas lawyer reviews the claim and the deadline that applies. Nothing is signed on that call.
Call (214) 617-0560Dallas County lists thirteen civil district courts, all sitting at the George L. Allen, Sr. Courts Building at 600 Commerce Street, plus five county courts at law. The county clerk states that a Dallas County court at law has concurrent jurisdiction with the district courts in civil cases where the amount in controversy exceeds $500, with no maximum, and that the party filing chooses between the two.
Why it matters: A Dallas wrongful death suit does not have one automatic destination. Choice of court is a real decision made at filing, and the surrounding practicalities -- where records are requested, where the clerk's civil counter is, which judge's procedures apply -- follow from it.
Sources: dallascounty.org · dallascounty.org
Section 71.004 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code makes a wrongful death action the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children and parents of the person who died, and allows one of them to bring it for the benefit of all. Siblings are not included. If no eligible relative has begun the action within three calendar months of the death, the statute directs the executor or administrator to bring it. Section 71.021 keeps the deceased person's own cause of action alive as a separate survival claim belonging to the heirs, legal representatives and estate.
Why it matters: Standing is the first thing that decides whether a claim exists at all. A brother or sister handling every arrangement after a Dallas death still cannot bring the wrongful death action in their own right, while an adult child living out of state can. Families who understand the two-claim structure early do not lose the estate's survival claim by filing only one of them.
Source: statutes.capitol.texas.gov
TxDOT's 2024 crash records show Dallas County with 305 fatal crashes and 331 traffic deaths. The road-type table for the same year puts 133 of those fatal crashes on city streets and 81 on interstate highways.
Why it matters: Fatal collisions here are mostly a surface-street problem, not a freeway one. Liability on a Dallas arterial usually turns on signal phasing, turn movements, sight lines and pedestrian crossings, and the evidence sits with city traffic records and local police agencies rather than with highway patrol.
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