Alameda County · Wrongful Death
Wrongful death lawyers serving Pleasanton families
A wrongful death claim is your family's right, not another burden you must carry. We do the carrying — the evidence, the deadlines, the insurers — and you decide only what only you can decide.
The days and weeks after a sudden loss are not a time for legal strategy, and no one should tell your family otherwise. But two things are true at once: your family may hold a wrongful death claim under California law, and that claim has deadlines that will not wait. Good counsel resolves the tension — by protecting the claim now and letting every other decision come later.
Oguz Injury Lawyers LLP serves Pleasanton from our office in downtown Walnut Creek. We begin however your family prefers — a phone call, a video meeting, a visit — and we work in English, Spanish, Turkish, and Mandarin Chinese. The first conversation is free and creates no obligation of any kind.
If we take the case, we preserve evidence before it disappears, obtain the official records, identify every responsible party and every applicable insurance policy, and present any required government claim within its short deadline. The insurers deal with us, not with you. There is no fee unless we recover for your family.
How the process works for a Pleasanton family
Because Pleasanton lies in Alameda County, a wrongful death lawsuit arising here would be filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, whose civil courts sit in Oakland. That is a fact we build around from day one — not because most cases reach a courtroom, but because the cases prepared for one are the cases that settle on fair terms.
The investigative record depends on where the death occurred. On Pleasanton's own streets — Hopyard Road, Santa Rita Road, Bernal Avenue, the downtown blocks around Main Street — the Pleasanton Police Department prepares the collision report; on I-680 or I-580, the California Highway Patrol investigates, deploying specialized reconstruction teams in the most serious cases. The county coroner's bureau adds its findings. We collect it all, and where the record is thin, we develop our own: witness accounts, camera footage, vehicle event data.
These cases arise from more than traffic. Some Pleasanton families come to us after a death on unsafe premises; others after a workplace incident, where workers' compensation provides limited death benefits but a separate civil claim may exist against a negligent third party. Each origin implicates different defendants and different coverage — and finding all of them is much of what determines what a family ultimately recovers.
California wrongful death law, plainly stated
- The deadline for a wrongful death claim in California is generally two years from the date of death, under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1.
- If a public entity bears responsibility — a government vehicle, a dangerous public road or property — a government claim generally must be presented within six months. This shorter deadline surprises grieving families constantly, and missing it can end the claim.
- Eligible claimants are defined by law: generally the surviving spouse or domestic partner and children first, then those entitled to the estate through intestate succession if there is no surviving spouse or issue.
- Pure comparative negligence applies: if the person who died was partly at fault, the family's recovery is reduced proportionally — not eliminated.
- A criminal prosecution, if any, is separate from the civil claim. The family's wrongful death case proceeds independently, under a different standard of proof, whatever the criminal outcome.
Frequently asked questions
How long does our family have?
The general deadline is two years from the date of death under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1. If a public entity may share responsibility — a government vehicle, a dangerous condition of a public road or property — a claim generally must be presented to that entity within six months. We confirm your family's actual deadlines in a first, free conversation, with no commitment attached.
The insurer implies our loved one bears some of the blame. What does that mean for us?
Not what the insurer hopes you will think. California applies pure comparative negligence: a decedent's share of fault, if any, reduces the recovery proportionally but never bars the claim. Fault arguments in fatal cases deserve particular scrutiny, because the person they are aimed at cannot answer them — so we do, with independent investigation.
Who is entitled to bring a wrongful death claim?
Generally the surviving spouse or registered domestic partner and the children; if there are none, the right passes under California's intestate succession rules, often to parents or siblings. Certain financially dependent household members may also qualify. Eligibility has real nuances — a brief conversation settles them.
What does representation cost?
Nothing unless there is a recovery. The consultation is free, we advance the case costs, and our fee is contingent on the result. Your family will never receive a bill from us.
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