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We're Here to Fight for Your Family
At Kohan & Bablove Injury Attorneys, we offer both caring guidance and strong advocacy. Whether the loss came from a fatal car accident on PCH, a boating incident in the harbor, or medical malpractice, we work to hold every at-fault party accountable. Our personal injury attorney team handles the legal process so your family can focus on healing. Contact us for a free, confidential consultation.
Compassionate Guidance for Grieving Families
After a sudden, tragic loss, your family is dealing with deep grief and confusion. At Kohan & Bablove Injury Attorneys, our job is to offer clear, caring guidance during this hard time.
A wrongful death claim is a legal path to hold negligent parties responsible. It can also help secure the money your family needs going forward. As your Newport Beach wrongful death lawyer, we carry the legal weight so you don’t have to.
We look closely into how your loss happened, whether that’s a car accident on PCH or an act of medical negligence. We also handle every talk with insurance companies on your behalf. Our goal is simple: get justice for your loved one, so your family can heal together.
The Kohan & Bablove Difference
Choosing the right wrongful death lawyer is a big decision built on trust. This matters most when your family feels most vulnerable. Our difference comes from steady, local advocacy paired with real results, not empty promises made in a first phone call.
Our firm has built a strong record helping Newport Beach families. This comes from real knowledge of this community and how local accidents tend to happen. Unlike larger, less personal firms, you get direct access to a partner throughout your case, not just a case manager you rarely hear from.
We also connect clients with financial and grief counseling experts to help with what comes next. A wrongful death case is about more than a legal win. Our team has a reputation for holding negligent parties fully accountable. We work to make sure your loved one’s memory is honored with real, lasting justice.
Protecting Your Family's Rights: Immediate Steps to Take
In the disorienting days after a loss, legal matters are the last thing on your mind. But a few early steps can help protect your family’s future and your right to seek justice. The at-fault party’s insurer often starts building its defense fast. These steps help you build your case for the truth.
Preserve Evidence Related to the Incident
Evidence can disappear fast, so try to save anything tied to the incident. This includes voicemails, texts, or emails that may matter. If a vehicle was involved, don’t have it repaired or scrapped. Keep any personal items your loved one had with them. Save any photos or videos from the scene right away. This evidence helps your attorney piece together what really happened.
Avoid Discussing the Matter on Social Media
This step matters more than most people realize. Insurance companies often watch the social media accounts of surviving family members closely. Even an innocent post about a family memory can get twisted. It may be used to suggest your loss isn’t as serious as you say. The safest move is to avoid posting and set your profiles to private.
Locate Important Documents
It helps to start gathering key documents, even though this feels hard. This includes your loved one’s will or trust. These help show who has the legal right to file a claim. Financial records, like recent pay stubs or tax returns, matter too. They help your attorney work out the full value of lost future income.
Don’t Accept Any Offer Without Legal Counsel
The at-fault party’s insurer may reach out fast with a settlement offer. Don’t accept anything without legal advice first. Early offers are often a calculated move to settle for far less than your claim is worth. Accepting one can permanently end your right to seek more. Politely decline and let them know your attorney will follow up.
Do You Have Grounds for a Wrongful Death Case?
Before filing a wrongful death lawsuit, it must be clear that your family member’s death happened because of another party’s negligence. If their own actions led to the accident, you likely won’t have a case.
This is the legal idea of negligence. Your attorney will need to show that someone else was at fault. That means your loved one likely wouldn’t have died if not for that person’s actions or failure to act.
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim in Newport Beach?
California law sets clear rules about who has the right to file a wrongful death claim. This structure exists to make sure the people most affected by the loss have the first right to seek justice.
Spouses, Domestic Partners, and Children
The law gives priority to the closest family members: a surviving spouse, registered domestic partner, and all surviving children. These people can file a claim for their own losses. This includes lost financial support, love, companionship, guidance, and moral support that they would have gotten from their loved one.
Other Eligible Heirs
If there’s no surviving spouse, partner, or children, the right to file can pass to other relatives, such as parents or siblings. This depends on California’s inheritance rules. Stepchildren or a “putative spouse” (someone who believed in good faith they were legally married) may also qualify if they can show they depended on the deceased financially.
If you’re unsure whether you qualify, or if more than one family member wants to file, a consultation can help sort out your case and who has priority.
Common Causes of Wrongful Death in Newport Beach
Wrongful death can come from negligence, reckless behavior, or intentional harm. Common causes include medical malpractice, fatal car accidents, workplace accidents, construction accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, slip and falls, and product liability cases.
In a coastal community like Newport Beach, a few scenarios come up more often than others.
- Fatal car and motorcycle accidents on PCH. The scenic Pacific Coast Highway sees heavy tourist traffic, distracted drivers, and high speeds. This mix can lead to devastating car accidents. We look closely into these cases to hold negligent drivers accountable, gathering police reports, traffic camera footage, and witness statements where we can.
- Boating and watercraft incidents. Newport Harbor sees a lot of recreational activity, along with real risk. A claim can come from an intoxicated operator, reckless maneuvering, or a rental company’s failure to keep its watercraft in safe shape. These cases often involve maritime law, which takes specific legal skill to handle correctly.
- Medical malpractice and negligent care. When we trust medical professionals with our loved ones, we expect real care. A wrongful death can happen due to medical malpractice, i.e., surgical error, a missed diagnosis, or a medication mistake. We work with medical experts to prove when negligence, not bad luck, caused a death that should have been avoided.
- Premises liability and negligent security. Property owners must keep their premises reasonably safe. A wrongful death can result from a fatal slip-and-fall caused by a hazard no one fixed, or from violence tied to poor security at a business. These cases can also involve tricky issues like vicarious liability and, in some cases, punitive damages.
Wrongful Death vs. Survival Action
California law recognizes two related but different claims after a fatal incident: a wrongful death action and a survival action. A skilled attorney often pursues both together to get your family the full justice you deserve.
A wrongful death claim is filed by surviving heirs to pay them back for their own losses, like lost financial support, love, and companionship. A survival action is filed on behalf of the deceased’s estate. It recovers the medical bills and lost wages the deceased personally faced before passing. Pain and suffering generally isn’t recoverable through a California survival action.
Pursuing both claims together makes sure every part of the tragedy gets addressed. This covers both your family’s loss and the losses your loved one faced before they passed.
Calculating Wrongful Death Compensation
No amount of money replaces a loved one. But a wrongful death claim can give your family the stability needed to move forward. Your attorney will carefully add up every loss to pursue full, fair compensation.
Economic Losses
These are the real, calculable costs your family has faced. This includes medical bills before your loved one’s passing, transportation costs, and funeral or burial expenses. We also work out the future income your loved one would have earned. This is usually based on their yearly wages, projected over their remaining working years until retirement. This includes lost medical benefits, retirement savings, and other benefits like a pension your family would have relied on.
Non-Economic Losses
These damages recognize the deep, harder-to-measure losses your family carries. This means lost love, companionship, comfort, affection, and guidance. For a child, this might mean the loss of a parent’s wisdom and daily presence. For a spouse, it’s the loss of a life partner and everything that relationship meant. A skilled attorney knows how to put this loss into words that matter during talks or at trial.
Punitive Damages
In rare cases with extreme recklessness, malice, or fraud, punitive damages may apply. These don’t pay your family back directly. Instead, they punish the at-fault party and discourage the same behavior in the future. We always check whether a case fits this kind of claim.
The Path to Justice: Key Stages of Your Claim
Working through a wrongful death claim during a time of grief can feel like a lot. We offer a clear, structured path so your family can focus on healing.
- Initial consultation and case planning. Your free, confidential consultation is a chance to share your story and get an honest look at your legal options.
- Investigation and liability determination. We gather evidence, from police reports and medical records to witness statements and expert opinions, to clearly show who’s responsible.
- Valuation and formal filings. We work with financial experts to work out the full value of your losses, then send a detailed demand to insurers or file a lawsuit if needed.
- Negotiation or trial. We push for the strongest possible settlement, and we’re always ready to bring your case before a judge and jury if the other side won’t negotiate fairly.
Understanding the Statute of Limitations
California sets a strict deadline, called the statute of limitations, for filing a wrongful death lawsuit. Missing this deadline usually means losing your right to seek compensation for good.
For most wrongful death cases, you have two years from the date of your loved one’s passing to file a claim. This applies to common cases like a fatal car accident or a deadly fall on private property. Two years may sound like a lot of time, but building a strong case takes real work, so acting fast matters.
This deadline can shrink a lot in certain cases. If a government entity was involved, like a city or state agency, you may have only six months to file a formal notice. Medical malpractice cases also carry their own specific deadlines. Talking with an attorney right away is the best way to protect your family’s rights.
Preparing for Your Free Consultation
Your free consultation is a chance to ask questions and get real clarity during a hard time. We guide you through a few key points from our very first meeting:
- An honest look at your case. We’ll share both the strengths of your case and any hurdles we may need to work through.
- Our approach to negotiation and trial. Most cases settle, but we prepare every case as if it’s headed to trial. This often leads to stronger settlement offers.
- How we work out your claim’s value. We’ll walk you through how we look at both economic and non-economic damages.
- How we keep you informed. You’ll have direct access to your attorney, with clear, respectful updates at every step.
- What we’ll need from your family. Mainly, giving us documents and information as needed, while we handle the legal complexity.
You Pay No Fees Unless We Recover for You
Grieving families shouldn’t have to worry about the cost of seeking justice. We work on a contingency fee basis, which removes financial risk from your family completely.
Our fee depends entirely on winning money for you. We’re only paid a set percentage of your final settlement or court award, agreed on ahead of time. If we don’t win, you owe us nothing in attorney fees. We also cover every cost along the way, from court filing fees to expert witnesses. You won’t be asked to pay these back if we’re not successful. Our written agreement lays out our fees in plain language, with no hidden costs or surprises.
Negotiating a Settlement
Hiring a wrongful death lawyer is just the first step. Once we take your case, we gather evidence and build a strong argument showing the other party’s negligence and why your family deserves compensation.
This process can be hard emotionally, which is why we handle as much of it as we can for you. Most claims settle out of court, since many companies would rather avoid the attention a wrongful death lawsuit can bring. Still, the choice to accept any offer is always yours. We’ll look over every offer and give you clear advice, whether that means accepting it or moving forward to trial.
If Court Becomes Necessary
Having experienced help in court matters, especially when emotions run high. We’ll guide your family through every stage of the process, so you know what to expect and can get ready both mentally and emotionally.
Speak With a Newport Beach Wrongful Death Lawyer
Your family deserves compensation for the loss of your loved one. Find out if you have grounds for a case, and what it could be worth, by speaking with a Newport Beach wrongful death lawyer at Kohan & Bablove Injury Attorneys. Schedule your free case evaluation using the contact form or by calling 949.535.1341.
Address: 20371 Irvine Ave Suite 110, Newport Beach, CA 92660 Phone: 949.535.1341
