We Know Exactly Who You Are Right Now
You are reading this because someone you love went to a party in Orinda on Halloween night, 2019, and did not come home. You are the parent of a nineteen-year-old who was just starting life, or the family of a twenty-three-year-old who left behind a three-year-old daughter who will grow up asking what her daddy was like. Five people died that night at a house advertised on social media as a “mansion party” — a house rented through Airbnb, in a quiet residential neighborhood in the hills above Camino Pablo and Brookwood Road, on a winding, narrow street with limited patrol coverage. We are not going to dress this up. We are going to tell you what the law in California actually says you can do about it, who you can hold responsible, what evidence exists and how fast it is being lost, how the insurance industry will try to take your case from you, and what the case is worth in real numbers.
We are Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña. We run a trial firm out of Houston that takes cases across the country, and we have spent decades standing in courtrooms against the same kinds of defendants you are about to face — a tech platform that wants to call itself neutral, a homeowner who wants to disappear, a city that wants to claim immunity, and a parade of insurance adjusters who will call you in the next seventy-two hours asking you to “just answer a few questions” before you understand what those questions mean. If you are the family of a victim, you are about to enter a fight. The choices you make in the first days will determine whether that fight ends in a real recovery or in a recorded statement that the defense will use against you for the next two years. We wrote this page so you do not have to make those choices blind.
“A large Halloween night party fueled by alcohol and drugs without adequate supervision and/or any security measures taken that altogether serve to create / promote an air of lawlessness and violence leading to the presence of the mass shooter or shooters on the property.”
— Allegations filed in the wrongful-death complaint by Raymon Hill Sr. and Cyntha Taylor, the parents of Raymon Hill Jr., in Contra Costa County Superior Court against Airbnb, the City of Orinda, the homeowners, and the party organizers.
That language is the legal frame. Read it once. Read it twice. It is what your family is asking a jury to accept as the truth. We will walk you through how the law gets you there, and how the defense will try to keep you from getting there.
California Wrongful Death Law: The Right to Sue
California gives the survivors of a person killed by wrongful act a statutory right to bring a civil claim for damages. The controlling statute is Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60, which grants the action to the surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and issue of deceased children. Where there is no surviving issue of the decedent, the action may be brought by “those entitled to the property of the decedent” under California’s intestate succession rules — which means parents, siblings, and other heirs, in the order set by state law.
Two distinct claims travel together in a case like this, and you need to understand both:
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The Wrongful Death Claim (CCP § 377.60). This claim belongs to the survivors. It asks the jury to compensate the family for what they lost — the financial support the deceased would have provided, the household services he would have performed, the loss of companionship, guidance, and care. Raymon Hill Jr.’s three-year-old daughter, for instance, has a wrongful-death claim for the father’s lost guidance and support that will run for decades.
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The Survival Action (CCP § 377.34). This claim belongs to the estate of the deceased, and it asks the jury to compensate what he went through — the medical bills, the pain and suffering, the conscious terror in the moments before death. Even when the person dies quickly, the survival claim exists, and California courts allow it to recover pre-death conscious suffering.
Both claims run on the same deadline: the statute of limitations in California is two years from the date of death, under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. There is a narrow discovery rule in certain cases, but the rule that controls most wrongful-death actions in California is the two-year clock, period. For a death on October 31, 2019, the SOL was October 31, 2021. We will discuss the SOL in depth later in this article, because it is the single most important deadline in the case, and missing it ends everything.
The damages the family can recover fall into three buckets, and California is one of the most generous jurisdictions in the country for each one:
- Economic damages — the objectively provable losses: lost earnings, lost earning capacity, lost fringe benefits (the workplace health plan, the retirement match, the paid time off — the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that for a typical private-sector worker, benefits run roughly thirty percent of total compensation on top of the wage), lost household services (the cooking, the childcare, the rides, the hundred small jobs a young adult does for a family), funeral and burial costs, and any pre-death medical bills.
- Non-economic damages — the human losses no receipt can price: pain and suffering, loss of companionship, loss of consortium, loss of guidance, the grief that does not end. California does not cap non-economic damages in a general wrongful-death case, and the jury is given wide latitude to value the loss.
- Punitive damages — punishment damages, designed to punish the defendant for malice, oppression, or fraud, under California Civil Code § 3294. Where the facts support a finding that a defendant acted with conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others — for example, knew the property was being used to host an unvetted party of a hundred people, took no security steps, and collected the money anyway — punitive damages are on the table.
For a death like the one at the Orinda party, where the decedent was a young adult with a minor child, with a corporate defendant (Airbnb) on the hook for systemic failures in how it screens and permits parties, the case value ranges from $2,500,000 on the low end to $10,000,000+ on the high end. We will walk through what drives that range later in this article.
The Defendants: Who You Can Hold Responsible and Why
Every defendant in a case like this serves a different role in the chain of negligence. We map the full defendant stack because the family has to understand not just who did what, but how the structure of the case lets us reach every pocket.
The Homeowners
The homeowners are the people who listed the property on Airbnb, accepted the booking for the Halloween weekend, collected the rental payment, and received the benefit of the bargain. Under California premises liability law, the duty to the guests and to the people those guests brought onto the property flows from the homeowners’ control of the property. They decided to make the home available for a one-hundred-person Halloween party. They collected the money. They had the right to refuse the booking, to require security, to cap the guest count, to require evidence of who would be there. They did none of those things.
The defense will argue that the homeowners “weren’t there” — that they had rented the property out and gone elsewhere. That argument does not work. The duty of a property owner does not evaporate when the owner is off-site. A landlord who rents a house to a hundred strangers for a Halloween party has a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure the event is safe, including rejecting bookings that pose an obvious risk. The fact that they were not on the property is an argument about scope of duty, not existence of duty.
The homeowners’ homeowner’s insurance is a primary coverage target. Most homeowner’s policies exclude business-activity coverage for short-term rentals, but many have a “host” endorsement or a separate commercial general liability layer. The coverage fight against the homeowners is a layered one: homeowner’s policy, umbrella, the host’s commercial general liability, the Airbnb host protection plan.
Airbnb
Airbnb is the defendant the families need most to understand. The company will argue three things, and we will pre-empt each one.
First, Airbnb will argue it is a “platform,” not a hotel or a property owner, and therefore owes no duty to the people on the property. The argument goes: we just connect hosts and guests; we don’t own the property, we don’t run the party, we don’t make the security decisions. We do not accept this. Airbnb does far more than connect. It sets the listing standards, the host screening standards, the guest verification standards, the party policy, the host protection insurance framework, the booking and payment process, and the trust-and-safety infrastructure. It certifies to the consumer that the platform is safe. It took a percentage of every dollar. When the company controls the conditions of the transaction to the degree Airbnb does, the legal duty follows. The company argues it is neutral. The company is not neutral. The company is a participant.
Second, Airbnb will argue it is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 protects “interactive computer services” from being treated as the “publisher or speaker” of third-party content. This argument is not a winner in a negligent security case. Section 230 protects against content-based claims — claims that the platform is responsible for what users post. A negligent security claim is not a content claim. It is a product-design and operational claim: the platform designed its booking system in a way that allowed a dangerous event to occur, failed to screen, failed to enforce its own party policy, failed to verify the host’s compliance with basic safety requirements. None of that is “publishing third-party content.” The Section 230 shield does not extend to operational negligence.
Third, Airbnb will argue that its host protection insurance, capped at one million dollars per occurrence, is the only available coverage. This is the argument that limits the recovery. It is a real argument, but it is not necessarily a winning one. The one-million-dollar host protection policy is a contractual cap on Airbnb’s coverage under a specific insurance program. It does not cap Airbnb’s liability. The policy limit is what Airbnb’s insurer will pay; it is not the ceiling on what a California jury can award. The difference matters enormously.
The Party Organizers
The party organizers are the people who created and publicized the event. They advertised the “mansion party” on social media. They invited the crowd. They controlled the conditions of the gathering — the security, the entry, the management of who was inside. Their negligence is direct, not derivative. They had a duty to the attendees to run the event with reasonable care, and a one-hundred-person unvetted party at a residential home on Halloween night, with no security personnel, was the absence of reasonable care.
The party organizers are the defendant least likely to have meaningful insurance. They are individuals, often young, often without significant assets. We name them anyway, because (a) the complaint must join every potentially responsible party, (b) their testimony in discovery is the spine of the evidence against the property owner and Airbnb (they can be forced to testify about the conditions, the planning, the warnings they received), and (c) the full picture of the night is the family right to know. We do not pretend they are the deep pocket. We do pretend they are the only people who can tell the family what happened.
The City of Orinda
The City of Orinda is named in the complaint. The city has a police department, code enforcement, and a duty to maintain public safety. The legal theory against the city is grounded in the California Tort Claims Act (Government Code §§ 810-996.6), which waives sovereign immunity for, among other things, dangerous conditions of public property and for injuries caused by the negligent acts of public employees in the scope of their employment.
A claim against the city has to clear two specific hurdles. First, the claimant must file a government claim with the City of Orinda within six months of the incident under Government Code § 911.2. That is a hard, jurisdictional deadline — miss it, and the claim against the city is dead. Second, the family must overcome the special-relationship doctrine, which generally holds that a government entity does not owe a duty to protect specific individuals from criminal acts of third parties unless the entity took affirmative steps that placed the victim in danger or created a foreseeable, specific risk. In a mass shooting case, the path to liability is to show that the city had specific prior knowledge that the property had been used for unpermitted large events, that the city had received complaints, that the city’s code enforcement or police had been to the property, and that the city failed to act. The case is harder than against a private defendant, but it is not impossible — and naming the city in the complaint preserves the claim.
The Insurance Adjuster Playbook: How They Will Try to Take Your Case
We have sat in the rooms where these cases get valued and where these adjusters get their marching orders. We are going to tell you what is coming so you can recognize it the first time you hear it, and so the play does not work on you.
Play 1: The Sympathy Call. Within seventy-two hours of the death, an insurance adjuster — often from the homeowner’s carrier, sometimes from a third-party administrator — will call the family. The call will be warm. The adjuster will express sorrow, will say “we just want to understand what happened,” and will ask the family member to “walk us through” the night. The call is being recorded. The conversation is being used to build the file the defense will deploy at deposition and at trial. The rule is simple: do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster before you have spoken to a lawyer. The adjuster is not your friend. The adjuster is the person whose job is to pay you as little as possible.
Play 2: The “Limited Policy” Anchor. The adjuster will explain that the policy is “limited” and the available coverage is small. The adjuster is not telling you the full picture. The homeowner’s policy, the umbrella, the host’s commercial general liability, the Airbnb host protection plan, and any other coverage in the chain may aggregate to a far larger number than the adjuster is offering. The first number is not the only number. The first number is the opening bid. Do not accept it.
Play 3: The Comparative Fault Play. The adjuster will ask what the decedent was doing that night — whether he was drinking, whether he had a weapon, whether he was involved in the altercation that led to the shooting, whether he was the “intended target.” The adjuster is building a comparative-fault argument. In California, pure comparative negligence applies — a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced by his percentage of fault, but it is not extinguished — but the adjuster does not need to actually establish fault; the adjuster only needs to plant a narrative that supports a fault argument. Every answer a grieving family member gives to a recorded question is a brick in that wall. The questions are not casual. The questions are depositions. You simply do not give them without counsel.
Play 4: The Settlement Fast-Ball. The adjuster may offer a settlement number quickly — within weeks, sometimes within days — before the family has retained counsel. The number is calibrated to be enough to take the heat off the carrier, and not nearly enough to reflect the actual case value. The family, exhausted and grieving, takes the check. The check funds the family for a fraction of what a wrongful-death case is worth, and the carrier closes its file. The number is not the number. The number is a closing cost.
Play 5: The Section 230 Wall. If the adjuster is from Airbnb’s insurer, the adjuster will likely tell you the family “can’t sue Airbnb” because Airbnb is a platform protected by federal law. This is wrong. Section 230 protects platforms from being treated as the publisher of third-party content. It does not protect a platform from being treated as a participant in a negligent-security scheme. We have explained this above. The adjuster’s job is to make the family go away. The adjuster is not a reliable source of legal advice.
Play 6: The Criminal Case Detour. The adjuster will tell you to “wait for the criminal case to finish” before you can pursue a civil case. This is wrong. California civil cases run on their own clock. The criminal case may take years. The civil case can be filed and pursued in parallel. Waiting for the criminal case to resolve is the defense’s friend, not the family’s.
Play 7: The Statute of Limitations Pressure. If the family delays, the adjuster will eventually raise the two-year California statute of limitations as a reason the family cannot pursue a case. This is a pressure tactic. The two-year clock is real, but the way you respond to it is to retain counsel promptly and let counsel manage it.
The counter to every one of these plays is the same: retain counsel, do not give recorded statements, do not accept a fast check, do not let the adjuster set the framing of the case. The adjuster’s job is to pay you as little as possible. Our job is to make sure that does not happen.
California Statute of Limitations: The Two-Year Clock You Cannot Stop
California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1 gives the family two years from the date of death to file a wrongful-death action. For a death on October 31, 2019, the two-year clock expired on October 31, 2021.
There is a narrow discovery rule in California wrongful-death cases. The two-year clock can be tolled in circumstances where the family did not know, and could not reasonably have known, the cause of the death or the identity of the defendant within the two-year period. In a mass shooting case, the family generally knows immediately who died and where, so the discovery rule has limited application. It is not a safety net for delay. It is a narrow exception for genuine inability to discover.
The two-year clock is jurisdictional in the sense that the court cannot extend it. A case filed after the clock has run is dead on arrival — the court will dismiss it, and the family will have lost the right to sue forever. This is why we write this section in plain language: do not assume you have time. Do not assume the insurance adjuster’s delay is your delay. Do not assume the criminal case has to resolve first. The clock is running, and the only person who can manage it is your attorney.
The two-year clock applies to the wrongful-death claim. The survival action has its own analysis, with some California cases treating the survival claim as arising at the moment of death and others treating the survival claim as the estate’s separate cause of action, but the practical advice is the same: file within two years, or lose everything.
If you are reading this and the two-year clock has already run, we need to discuss whether the discovery rule or any other tolling doctrine preserves your right to file. We have handled cases in that posture. The conversation is harder, and the law is unforgiving, but it is worth the call.
“Except as otherwise provided by statute, a civil action may be commenced only within the periods prescribed in this title, after the cause of action shall have accrued…”
— California Code of Civil Procedure § 312. The two-year personal-injury and wrongful-death clock is set by CCP § 335.1.
Why California Is a Strong Forum for This Case
Three features of California law make it a particularly strong forum for a case like this.
First, pure comparative negligence. Under California law, a plaintiff’s recovery is reduced by the plaintiff’s percentage of fault, but it is not extinguished. The defense cannot point to anything the decedent did and use it to defeat the case entirely. The defense can only reduce the recovery by the percentage of fault attributable to the decedent. In a mass-shooting case, the defense will try to argue comparative fault — that the decedent was drinking, that he was in a place he should not have been, that he made a choice. In California, even if the jury assigns some comparative fault to the decedent, the family still recovers the rest.
Second, no general cap on non-economic damages. California does not cap pain-and-suffering or wrongful-death non-economic damages in a general case. There are caps in specific contexts (medical malpractice, for example) that do not apply here. The jury is given wide latitude to value the loss, and the value the jury places on a human life is the value the family receives.
Third, the strong punitive-damages standard. California Civil Code § 3294 allows punitive damages where the plaintiff proves by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted with malice, oppression, or fraud. The standard is plaintiff-favorable, and the evidence in a negligent-security case — a corporate defendant that knew the risk, took the money, and did nothing — is the kind of evidence that meets the standard.
These three features together make California a forum where the family can pursue a meaningful recovery, not a token settlement. The defense knows this. The defense will try to settle early to avoid a California jury. The defense’s pressure to settle quickly is, paradoxically, a measure of the value of the case.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long do I have to file a wrongful death lawsuit in California after the Orinda shooting?
Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1, the statute of limitations for wrongful death and personal injury is two years from the date of death. For a death on October 31, 2019, the two-year clock expired on October 31, 2021, with a narrow discovery-rule exception for cases where the family did not know, and could not reasonably have known, the cause of the death or the identity of the defendant within the two-year period. If you are reading this and the two-year clock has already run, the analysis turns on whether the discovery rule preserves your right to file. Call us immediately. We have handled cases in that posture.
Who can file a wrongful death lawsuit in California after a mass shooting?
Under California Code of Civil Procedure § 377.60, the action may be brought by the surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and issue of deceased children. Where there is no surviving issue of the decedent, the action may be brought by those entitled to the property of the decedent under California’s intestate succession rules — parents, siblings, and other heirs, in the order set by state law. For the survival action under CCP § 377.34, the personal representative of the estate files. The five decedents in the Orinda case had different family configurations, and the analysis of who has standing differs case by case. The families should consult counsel to determine who has the right to file.
Can I sue Airbnb for a shooting at one of its rentals?
Yes. The families in the Orinda case named Airbnb as a defendant, and the legal theory is straightforward: Airbnb is not a neutral platform. It controls the conditions of the transaction — the host screening, the party policy, the booking verification, the host protection insurance, the trust-and-safety infrastructure. The defense will argue Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects Airbnb. That argument fails in a negligent-security case, because Section 230 protects platforms from being treated as the publisher of third-party content — not from being held responsible for their own operational negligence in facilitating a dangerous event. The argument that Airbnb is just a “platform” with no duty is also a loser in California, where the duty analysis turns on foreseeability and control, not on labels.
Who can be held responsible for a mass shooting at a short-term rental in California?
The defendants typically include the homeowners (premises liability for the property they own and rented out), the booking platform (Airbnb, on the theory described above), the party organizers (direct negligence in creating and publicizing the event), and the municipality (under the California Tort Claims Act, where the facts support it). The defense will try to push the entire case onto the criminal perpetrator. The criminal perpetrator is one defendant, but he is not the only one. The premise of civil wrongful-death law is that multiple parties can be responsible for the same harm, and the family is entitled to recover from every party whose negligence contributed to the death.
Can the city be held liable for failing to prevent a mass shooting?
It is harder, but not impossible. The California Tort Claims Act (Government Code §§ 810-996.6) waives sovereign immunity for dangerous conditions of public property and for negligent acts of public employees. The special-relationship doctrine generally protects the city from a duty to protect specific individuals from criminal acts, but a claim can survive where the city had specific prior knowledge of the danger — for example, prior complaints about unpermitted parties at the property, prior code enforcement visits, prior police calls to the address — and failed to act. The two-year clock for the wrongful-death action against the city runs from the date of death, but the underlying government claim under Government Code § 911.2 had to be filed within six months of the incident. Missing the six-month government-claim deadline can defeat the case against the city entirely.
What evidence is there in a short-term rental shooting case?
The evidence is substantial and perishable. It includes: the Airbnb booking record (the spine of the negligent-security case), the social media advertisements for the party, the text messages between the host and the renters, the host’s prior rental history, the platform’s party-screening criteria and the host’s compliance, surveillance and doorbell camera footage (which often overwrites within thirty to sixty days), police 911 call logs and dispatch audio, body-worn camera footage, crime scene photographs, witness statements, the criminal investigation file, the medical and autopsy records, the toxicology and forensic evidence, the homeowner’s insurance declarations, the Airbnb host protection policy, the organizer’s communications, the neighborhood association’s prior complaints, the city’s code enforcement records, and the homeowner’s prior rental history. The preservation of this evidence is the single most important early step in the case. If you are the family, the preservation letter goes out the day you call a lawyer, not the day you file a lawsuit.
How much is a wrongful death case worth in California?
For a case like the Orinda shooting — a young decedent with a minor child, against a corporate defendant, in California — the value range is $2,500,000 to $10,000,000+, with the range driven by the decedent’s age, the existence of the minor child, the recoverable insurance stack, the punitive-damages exposure, and the strength of the foreseeability proof. California does not impose a general cap on non-economic damages, and the pure comparative negligence rule means that even a comparative-fault finding reduces but does not extinguish the recovery. The first number the family is offered is rarely the right number. The right number is the one built from the proof, not the one offered to close the file.
What if my loved one was drinking or doing drugs at the party?
The defense will use any such evidence to argue comparative fault under California’s pure comparative negligence rule. The argument is real, but it is not a knockout. The argument is that the decedent’s share of fault should reduce the recovery. It is not the argument that the family recovers nothing. The standard is what a reasonable young adult would have done, and the question of whether a young adult at a Halloween party is comparatively at fault for being shot is exactly the kind of question a California jury decides. The defense’s comparative-fault argument is one weapon in their quiver, not the case-ender.
How long does a wrongful death case take to resolve in California?
From filing to verdict or settlement, a wrongful-death case in California typically takes eighteen months to three years, depending on the complexity, the number of defendants, the discovery disputes, and the court’s calendar. Cases with extensive forensic evidence and expert testimony can take longer. Settlements can happen at any stage — before filing, after filing, during discovery, after depositions, after the close of expert discovery, or on the eve of trial. The first offer is rarely the best offer. The family’s decision to settle or try is made with full information, after the case is built, not in the first weeks when the family is grieving and the insurance adjuster is calling.
Can the homeowner be sued if they were not at the property?
Yes. A property owner does not have to be present on the property at the time of the harm to owe a duty. The duty of a property owner in California, after Rowland v. Christian, is a duty of ordinary care under the circumstances. A homeowner who rents a property to a hundred strangers for a Halloween party, collects the money, and then is not present has a duty to take reasonable steps before the rental to ensure the event is safe — including rejecting bookings that pose an obvious risk. The fact that the homeowner was off-site is an argument about scope of duty, not existence of duty. The family can sue, and the case is not foreclosed by the homeowner’s absence.
Can the family get punitive damages in California for a negligent security case?
Punitive damages are available under California Civil Code § 3294 where the plaintiff proves by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant acted with malice, oppression, or fraud. The standard is plaintiff-favorable. In a case where the platform knew of the risk of unvetted parties, took no meaningful security steps, and collected the money anyway, the evidence can support a punitive-damages finding. Punitive damages in a negligent-security case can substantially multiply the compensatory award, and they are the central leverage in pushing a corporate defendant toward a meaningful settlement.
What is the contingency fee structure for a wrongful death case in California?
A trial firm that takes wrongful-death cases on a contingency basis charges a percentage of the recovery, not an hourly fee. At our firm, the contingency fee is 33.33% before trial and 40% at trial, and we do not get paid unless we win. The contingency fee is the deal that lets a family that cannot afford hourly representation pursue a case against a corporate defendant with virtually unlimited resources. We explain the math in plain terms on the consultation call. The family never pays out of pocket; our fee comes out of the recovery, and we front the case costs.
Why is the first insurance offer not the right number?
The first insurance offer is calibrated to close the file. It is calibrated to give the family enough to take the immediate financial pressure off, and not nearly enough to reflect the actual value of the case. The actual value of the case is built from the proof — the evidence, the expert analysis, the recoverable insurance, the punitive-damages exposure. A case that the insurance carrier offers $500,000 to settle in the first thirty days is often a case that resolves for several million dollars once the layers are built. The first offer is the defense’s opening bid. The right number is the number at the end, not the number at the start.
What if the criminal case is still ongoing when I want to file the civil case?
You can file the civil case while the criminal case is ongoing. The two cases run on different clocks, with different rules of evidence, and with different burdens of proof. The criminal case can take years to resolve, and waiting for the criminal case to resolve means giving up the leverage that comes from a parallel civil prosecution. The defense’s suggestion to “wait for the criminal case” is the defense’s friend, not the family’s. The civil case can move forward in parallel with the criminal case, and the family’s lawyers can use the discovery tools in the civil case to obtain evidence that may not be available through the criminal process.
What should I do in the first 72 hours after the death of a loved one in a mass shooting?
In the first 72 hours, you should do five things, in this order. First, do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster, investigator, or representative of any defendant. Second, write down everything you know about the night — what your loved one told you, who you spoke to, what you saw, what you remember. Third, gather and preserve any communications — texts, emails, social media messages — that you have with your loved one or with anyone else who was at the party. Fourth, contact a wrongful-death attorney with trial experience. Fifth, do not post about the case on social media, do not discuss the case with anyone other than your attorney, and do not sign any document from any insurance carrier or defendant. The first 72 hours set the trajectory of the entire case. Make them count.
What the Family Should Do This Week
If you are the family of one of the five young people who died in Orinda on October 31, 2019, the most important thing you can do this week is call us. The call is free. The call is confidential. The call is 24/7. The number is 1-888-ATTY-911. We will walk you through the case, the timeline, the evidence that needs to be preserved, and the next steps.
Do not give a recorded statement to any insurance adjuster. Do not sign any document from any defendant or its insurer. Do not post about the case on social media. Do not discuss the case with anyone other than your attorney. Do not let the criminal case timeline delay the civil case. The two-year clock is the most important deadline in your case, and the clock does not pause for grief.
The preservation letter goes out the day you call. The defendants get put on notice. The evidence gets frozen. The case starts being built the way cases are supposed to be built. You get a real decision at the end, with full information, about whether to settle or try. That is the deal. That is what a trial firm does for families like yours.
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911. The consultation is free, and you pay nothing unless we win.
Hablamos Español. Si su familia necesita un abogado que hable español con fluidez, llámenos al 1-888-ATTY-911. La consulta es gratis.