Most Nevada wrongful death cases resolve without a jury ever hearing them. That does not make the trial irrelevant. A trial date is what gives a case its shape: it sets the deadlines, it decides which witnesses have to be produced, and it is the thing both sides are measuring when they value a claim.
Nevada’s civil trial procedure is set out in statute, in NRS Chapter 16, and it is more specific than most people expect. The chapter says how many people sit on the jury, who argues first and last, and what the jurors may carry into the deliberation room. Where a case includes a claim for punitive damages, a separate statute splits the trial into two stages in front of the same jury.
What follows is that sequence, with the provisions governing each step. It covers the litigation stage, from discovery through verdict, not the earlier work of appointing a personal representative, identifying heirs, and bringing the claims together in one action.
Key Takeaways
- A Nevada civil jury is eight people, unless both sides consent to fewer, and the floor is four.
- NRS 16.190 does not require every juror to agree. It sets a threshold of disagreement at which the jury is sent back out.
- Where several heirs have separate claims and appear through different counsel, the court decides the order in which they present evidence and argument.
- Depositions are expressly excluded from the papers the jury takes into the deliberation room.
- A punitive damages claim is tried in two stages: whether to assess them, then how much, before the same trier of fact.
- The jury is not told what limits the punitive damages statute places on the amount it may award.
- A party aged 70 or older may ask the court for preference in setting a trial date.
Getting to a Trial Date
A trial date is set by the court, and the ordinary queue in a busy district takes time families often find hard to absorb — particularly where the surviving claimants are the decedent’s parents rather than a young spouse.
Nevada has a statutory answer to part of that. Under NRS 16.025(1), on the motion of a party who is 70 years of age or older, “the court may give preference in setting a date for the trial of the action, unless the court finds that the party does not have a substantial interest in the case as a whole.” Subsection 2 provides a separate route turning on clear and convincing medical evidence about a party’s prospects, and subsection 4 another where the damages are alleged to have been caused during acts for which the defendant was convicted of a crime punishable as a felony.
Preference is not a vague priority. Where it is granted under subsection 1 or 2, the court “shall set a date for the trial of the action that is not more than 120 days after the hearing on the motion,” and “shall not continue the date for the trial of the action beyond 120 days after the hearing on the motion, except for the physical disability of a party or attorney in the action, or for other good cause entered on the record.”
In a Nevada wrongful death case the elderly-party route matters more than it first appears, because an heir who lost an adult child is frequently the person the statute is describing.
Discovery: Building What the Jury Will Hear
Discovery is where a case is built or lost, and it is almost entirely invisible to the family. Nothing produced in discovery is evidence by itself; it becomes evidence only if offered and received at trial.
That distinction has a consequence most people never hear about until it is too late to plan around it. NRS 16.130 lists what the jury may carry into deliberations: “all papers, except depositions, and all other items and materials which have been received as evidence in the cause.” Depositions are singled out and excluded.
So a deposition is not a document the jury reads on its own time. If deposition testimony is going to carry weight, it has to be put in front of the jurors in the courtroom, read or played, where they hear it once. A deposition taken carelessly cannot be rescued by handing over the transcript later; one taken with a trial in mind can be the strongest half-hour of the case.
What an Expert Can Say, and What Only the Court Can Say
Wrongful death cases usually turn on testimony no ordinary witness can give — how a collision happened, what a clinical decision should have been, what a person’s working life would have produced over the years they did not get. Those are matters for qualified witnesses, and frequently the most contested part of a trial.
What no witness supplies is the law. NRS 16.110(1) requires the court to “reduce to writing the instructions to be given to the jury, unless the parties agree otherwise,” to read those instructions to the jury, and to “give instructions only as to the law of the case.” The same subsection closes the door behind that: once the instructions are given, “the judge shall not clarify, modify or in any manner explain them to the jury except in writing unless the parties agree to oral instructions.”
The standard the jury applies is therefore fixed in writing, settled with counsel out of the jury’s presence under subsection 3, and delivered by the judge. An expert supplies facts and opinions within a field; the instruction tells the jury what to do with them. Witnesses matter, but the wording of the instructions is quietly among the most consequential fights in the case.
The Jury: Eight People, and What They Carry In
A Nevada civil jury is smaller than the twelve people most people picture. NRS 16.030(4) states that “the jury must consist of eight persons, unless the parties consent to a lesser number,” and that “the parties may consent to any number not less than four.” That consent is not informal — the statute requires that it “must be entered by the clerk in the minutes of the trial.”
The same subsection describes how the panel is narrowed. Once enough prospective jurors have been qualified, “each side shall exercise its peremptory challenges out of the hearing of the panel by alternately striking names from the list of persons on the panel.” Whoever remains, in the order their names were drawn, becomes a regular or alternate juror.
NRS 16.130 then governs what those jurors take with them. Beyond the deposition exclusion above, it lets them bring “notes of the testimony, or other proceedings on the trial, taken by themselves or any of them, but none taken by any other person.” A juror’s own notes come in; nobody else’s do.
One further provision matters a great deal where a death arose from a dangerous location. Under NRS 16.100, where the court thinks it proper for the jury “to have a view of the property which is the subject of litigation, or of the place in which any material fact occurred,” it may order the jurors conducted there in a body, under the charge of an officer, with the place shown to them by a person the court appoints. While they are there, “no person, other than the person so appointed, shall speak to them on any subject connected with the trial.” Occasionally the geometry of an intersection, a stairwell, or a work site is the case, and no exhibit substitutes for standing in it.
The Order of Proceedings When Several Heirs Have Separate Claims
NRS 16.090 sets the order a civil trial follows once the jury is sworn, “unless the judge for special reasons otherwise directs.” Opening statements come first, if counsel want them. Under subsection 2, “the plaintiff and defendant shall then each offer the evidence upon his or her part,” with rebutting evidence under subsection 3. Subsection 4 gives the plaintiff both ends of the closing: “the plaintiff must commence and may conclude the argument.” Subsection 6 places the instructions before argument — “the court shall settle and give the instructions to the jury before the argument begins” — so counsel argue to a jury already told the legal test.
Subsection 5 speaks directly to a death case with more than one claimant. Where “several plaintiffs or defendants, having separate claims or defenses, appear by different counsel,” the statute provides that “the court shall determine their relative order in the evidence and argument.” A wrongful death action can involve heirs whose losses differ genuinely from one another, and some may be separately represented. The order in which their cases reach the jury is not theirs to divide among themselves. It is a decision for the court.
A Punitive Damages Claim Splits the Trial in Two
Where the conduct that caused a death was more than careless, the claim may include punitive damages. NRS 42.005(1) sets the gateway: “in an action for the breach of an obligation not arising from contract, where it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant has been guilty of oppression, fraud or malice,” those damages become available, subject to exceptions in NRS 42.007. That burden sits above the one the rest of the case is tried to.
Procedurally, the claim changes the architecture of the trial. Subsection 3 provides that where punitive damages are claimed, “the trier of fact shall make a finding whether such damages will be assessed,” and that if they are to be assessed, “a subsequent proceeding must be conducted before the same trier of fact to determine the amount of such damages to be assessed.” Those findings, “if made by a jury, must be made by special verdict along with any other required findings.”
Two further points shape what the jury hears. Subsection 3 directs that “the jury must not be instructed, or otherwise advised, of the limitations on the amount of an award of punitive damages prescribed in subsection 1” — the statute does set limits, and the jury fixing the amount is kept from knowing them. Under subsection 4, evidence of the defendant’s financial condition “is not admissible for the purpose of determining the amount of punitive damages to be assessed until the commencement of the subsequent proceeding.”
A wrongful death trial with a punitive claim is therefore two hearings in sequence before the same jury, and evidence inadmissible in the first becomes admissible in the second. Whether such damages are available in a given case, and which of the two claims in a Nevada death action would recover them, are questions for the lawyer handling the file.
Talk to a Nevada Wrongful Death Lawyer
Most of the decisions that determine a trial are made long before anyone stands up in front of a jury: which witnesses to depose and how, what the instructions should say, whether a punitive claim belongs in the case, whether to ask the court for an earlier date.
Vaksman Khalfin, PC acts for injured people across Nevada from the firm’s Las Vegas office at 10161 Park Run Drive, Suite 150. The first consultation is free, and injury claims are handled on a contingency-fee basis: there is no upfront cost, attorney’s fees are owed only out of a recovery, and fees and case costs are separate items set out in the written agreement. Wider material sits in the Nevada personal injury guides.
Reviewed by Robert B. Vaksman, Partner, Vaksman Khalfin, PC (admitted in Nevada). Last reviewed: 10/28/2026
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Most conclude without a jury hearing them. The trial date still governs the case, because it sets the deadlines both sides work to and it is the alternative against which any resolution is measured.
Eight. NRS 16.030(4) provides that the jury "must consist of eight persons, unless the parties consent to a lesser number," and the parties "may consent to any number not less than four." That consent is entered by the clerk in the minutes.
The statute on recording a verdict is written in terms of disagreement rather than unanimity. NRS 16.190 provides that on a poll, "if more than one-fourth of the jurors disagree, the jury shall be again sent out," and that if no disagreement is expressed the verdict is recorded and complete. A Nevada civil verdict is not conditioned on every juror agreeing.
No. NRS 16.130 lets the jury take "all papers, except depositions," along with other materials received as evidence. Deposition testimony has to be presented to the jurors in the courtroom if it is going to count.
It is possible. NRS 16.100 allows the court to order the jury conducted, in a body and under the charge of an officer, to the property in question or "the place in which any material fact occurred." Only the person the court appoints may show them the place.
The plaintiff. Under NRS 16.090(4), once the evidence is concluded and unless the case is submitted without argument, "the plaintiff must commence and may conclude the argument." Subsection 6 places the court's instructions before argument begins.
Yes. NRS 16.025(1) lets a party who is 70 years of age or older move for preference in setting a trial date, which the court may give unless it finds the party lacks a substantial interest in the case as a whole. Where it is granted, the statute directs a trial date not more than 120 days after the hearing.
Because of a punitive damages claim. NRS 42.005(3) requires the trier of fact first to find whether such damages will be assessed, and then, if they are, to conduct "a subsequent proceeding" before the same trier of fact to fix the amount. The defendant's financial condition is not admissible on the amount until that second proceeding begins.
