Eligible survivors
The law may recognize losses suffered by a spouse, children, parents, and certain other dependent relatives. Who qualifies depends on the relationship and statute.
Find help with a property transaction, a home at risk, or a debt you need to address.
Start with what happened or the community where you need help.
Explore planning, estate administration, and decisions about care and family responsibilities.
Find the service that fits your business, succession plans, or entertainment matter.
Find the statewide overview or Stuart page, then talk with the firm about your situation.
Find help with an investigation, arrest, criminal charge, or court date.
A Hobe Sound family may be facing an insurer, property owner, business, employer, driver, provider, or institution before it has had time to process what happened. Katz & Associates can protect the claim while treating the family with the care the moment requires.
No attorney fee unless compensation is recovered for you.
Tell us what happened, the explanation you received, and who has contacted the family. We can identify what deserves immediate attention and handle the evidence, insurer, and estate coordination from there.
No one should hand a grieving family a generic checklist and call it help. Katz gives clear guidance, performs the investigation, and keeps the family involved only in the decisions that truly require it.
Florida law places the wrongful death action with the personal representative, who brings it for the benefit of eligible survivors and the estate. That structure should be explained clearly, not dropped on the family as another burden.
The law may recognize losses suffered by a spouse, children, parents, and certain other dependent relatives. Who qualifies depends on the relationship and statute.
The estate may have its own recoverable losses. Appointment and estate-administration questions can affect how the claim moves forward.
Negligence, a wrongful act, a defective condition, professional conduct, or another legal basis must be supported by the facts and law.
Records, witnesses, experts, insurance, assets, and available defendants shape what can be proven and how the claim should be pursued.
Your family should not have to become the investigator. Katz can identify what may disappear, preserve the right sources, and build the facts in an order that respects both the case and the people living through the loss.
Katz identifies and pursues the agencies, businesses, properties, providers, and witnesses that may hold proof.
Ownership, management, contracting, employment, maintenance, staffing, and notice can point to more than one responsible party.
We help align the representative appointment and estate questions with the investigation and filing plan.
The claim should reflect support and services as well as the care, guidance, companionship, and presence now missing.
The Martin County Sheriff, fire rescue, medical providers, property operators, employers, associations, businesses, and the District 19 Medical Examiner may each hold part of the record. A focused plan identifies those sources early.
US 1, Bridge Road, A1A, residential communities, parks, waterways, work sites, and care settings create different questions about visibility, maintenance, control, safety, response, and insurance.
“A life is not a spreadsheet. The legal work should still account for every way that life supported the people left behind.”
No honest lawyer can value a wrongful death from one call. The relationships, support, services, circumstances, evidence, and law all need careful review.
Florida's Wrongful Death Act addresses losses that may belong to eligible survivors and losses that may belong to the estate. The available categories depend on the relationships and circumstances, so the framework should be explained without promising that every category applies.
The categories and limitations appear in Florida Statute 768.21.
Start with the concern that brought you here. We will explain what can be reviewed and take the investigation one careful step at a time.
You stay informed about the decisions that matter. Katz organizes the investigation, legal roles, insurers, and proof so the family is not asked to manage the case day to day.
We identify the event-specific records, witnesses, physical evidence, digital sources, and expert questions before avoidable gaps develop.
We help clarify the personal representative's role and connect the wrongful death work with estate issues that affect the claim.
We develop the financial, practical, and human evidence for the survivor and estate categories supported by Florida law.
We handle insurer contact, present the supported claim, respond to disputes, negotiate, and prepare for litigation when the facts and strategy call for it.
These answers are general information. The cause of death, family relationships, estate status, defendant, and applicable law can change the analysis.
Florida law generally requires the decedent's personal representative to bring the action for the benefit of eligible survivors and the estate. A spouse, child, parent, or another family member may start the conversation with Katz even if no representative has been appointed yet.
That does not prevent the family from asking for guidance. The Martin County estate and family circumstances can be reviewed, and the necessary appointment steps can be coordinated with the wrongful death investigation.
Depending on the relationships and facts, Florida law may allow lost support and services, certain companionship and mental-pain losses, medical or funeral expenses, and specified estate losses. Not every category is available in every case.
A criminal case and a civil wrongful death claim serve different purposes and can move on different timelines. The civil evidence and filing requirements still need attention. Coordination can protect the civil claim without interfering with the criminal process.
Florida Statute 95.11 generally provides two years for a wrongful death action. Different defendants, claim types, pre-suit requirements, and statutory exceptions can change the analysis. Evidence may disappear much earlier, so the deadline should be reviewed rather than guessed.
Share what happened, who you lost, and what is pressing on your Hobe Sound family now. We will listen, explain what can be reviewed, and help you understand the next practical step.
CALL 772-933-5289No attorney fee unless compensation is recovered for you.