In the first week after a fatal accident, focus on three things: your family, the official paperwork that only accumulates once, and not making any binding decisions under pressure. Everything else can wait, and most of it should.
This is a practical guide, written plainly, for a week nobody prepares for.
First: people, not paperwork
Nothing on this list matters more than the funeral, your children, your parents, and your own sleep and meals. Legal steps this week are few and small. Let them stay small.
One organizational step helps everything that follows: choose one person to be the family's point of contact for calls about the accident - police, insurers, the tow yard, employers. One voice, one notebook. It prevents contradictions and spares the rest of the family a dozen painful conversations.
Order more death certificates than you think you need
The funeral home usually helps order certified copies of the death certificate. Ask for several. Banks, insurance companies, employers, and courts each tend to require their own certified copy, and reordering later adds errands to a hard season.
Start the record requests that take time
Two records matter in almost every fatal accident case, and both take time to be ready:
- The police or crash report. Ask how to obtain it and note the report number.
- The coroner's findings, where the coroner is involved. These follow their own timeline, and you do not need to read them this week. You only need to know they are coming and where they will be.
Be careful with insurance calls, including your own insurer
Insurers may call quickly. Some calls are administrative. Some are not. Three calm rules:
Do not give a recorded statement to the other side's insurance company before getting advice. You are not obligated to provide one, and early statements are kept and can be used later.
Do not sign anything releasing claims, and be careful even with paperwork described as routine. If a document mentions the words release, waiver, or settlement, set it aside.
Your own insurance policy may require timely notice of an accident, and giving that notice is fine. Notification is not negotiation: report the fact of the accident, and do not speculate about fault.
If an early settlement offer arrives, you do not have to respond to it this week, or at all. Offers made before the facts are known serve the party making them.
Preserve what exists
A few quiet steps this week protect every option later:
- If a vehicle was involved, do not let it be repaired, released, or scrapped yet
- Save photographs, from the scene or otherwise, wherever they exist
- Write down the names of witnesses and anyone who has called about the accident
- Keep the deceased's phone, and do not wipe or reassign it
- Start one folder, physical or digital, for every receipt: funeral costs, travel, everything
None of this commits you to anything. It simply keeps doors open.
What does not need to happen this week
You do not need to decide whether to bring a claim. You do not need to understand wrongful death law. You do not need to talk to anyone about money. Anyone pressing you for decisions this week, whatever their reason, can wait.
One boundary belongs here, stated gently: in most cases, a wrongful death claim must be filed within one year from the date of death. Not this week, but soon, a single conversation with an attorney protects your options while you decide nothing at all.
When you want answers, they are free
Whenever your family is ready to ask questions, the Law Offices of Chip Forstall will answer them plainly. Chip Forstall has served New Orleans for nearly 50 years, and the firm now spans two generations at 320 North Carrollton Ave. The conversation is free and without obligation.
Call 504-483-3400 when it is time. No upfront cost, no fee unless we win. Se habla español.