Personal Injury San Diego.org

When a person dies because a property was unreasonably dangerous, California premises liability law holds the property owner or manager accountable for that death through a wrongful death lawsuit. Fatal falls from unguarded heights, drowning in unsecured pools, deaths from criminal attacks on properties with inadequate security, structural failures, and a range of other hazar...

Medical malpractice is the second-leading cause of wrongful death litigation in California — responsible for a significant share of the preventable deaths that occur each year in hospitals, surgical centers, clinics, and care facilities throughout the state. When a healthcare provider’s departure from the standard of care kills a patient, the surviving family has legal rights...

When a defective product kills someone in California, the manufacturer cannot hide behind a negligence standard that requires proof of carelessness. California’s strict products liability doctrine — established in Greenman v. Yuba Power Products (1963) and applied in every California court since — holds manufacturers, distributors, and retailers strictly liable for deaths cau...

When a California worker is killed on the job, the family faces a legal landscape that is more complex than most other wrongful death situations — because workers’ compensation and civil tort law operate simultaneously, with different defendants, different rules, and sometimes conflicting interests. Workers’ compensation pays death benefits through the employer’s insurer as a...

When a drunk driver kills someone in California, the resulting wrongful death case operates under a fundamentally different legal framework than other fatal accident cases. The at-fault driver made a deliberate choice to drink and drive — a choice California law recognizes as conscious disregard for the safety of others. That characterization opens punitive damages, strengthe...