The phrase sounds like a criminal charge, and that is where most of the confusion starts. People hear “wrongful death” and assume it describes a killing — something the State would prosecute, with a lesser name attached to it.
It describes nothing of the kind. Wrongful death is a civil term, and in Nevada its test is set by statute and is considerably wider than any crime in the criminal code. Most wrongful deaths are not crimes at all, which is why a family can have a claim where no one is charged, and why a prosecution and a civil case can reach opposite conclusions about the same death without either being wrong.
This page sets out what the statutory phrase actually requires, and what separates it from a prosecution.
Key Takeaways
- Nevada’s wrongful death statute applies where a death “is caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another.”
- Neglect is not a crime. Every criminal homicide definition in Nevada begins from an unlawful killing.
- The statute gives both the heirs and the personal representatives an action, and says they may “each” maintain one.
- A claim can be brought against an employer responsible for the wrongdoer’s conduct.
- It can also be brought against a wrongdoer’s personal representatives, “whether the wrongdoer died before or after” the person they injured.
- A criminal case is decided on a standard the statute itself defines, and the defendant “is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved.”
- Nothing about the statutory test depends on whether anyone was charged, tried or convicted.
What the Statute Says
The operative words are at the opening of NRS 41.085(2): “When the death of any person, whether or not a minor, is caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another.” The subsection then gives both the heirs and the decedent’s personal representatives a right to sue the person responsible, each of them maintaining an action of their own.
Three things in that sentence do most of the definitional work.
The first is the phrase supplying the whole test: “the wrongful act or neglect of another.” Not a killing, not an offence, not an intention — a wrongful act, or neglect. The second is “whether or not a minor,” which puts the death of a child squarely inside the statute without any separate provision. The third is the word “each,” which is where Nevada’s two-claim structure comes from: the heirs have one action and the personal representatives have another, and they are not the same action.
What those two actions recover is a separate subject, and the Nevada wrongful death guide covers it. The point here is narrower: the meaning of the phrase is fixed by that opening clause, and the clause says nothing about crime.
“Wrongful Act or Neglect” Is Wider Than Any Crime in Nevada
Put the civil test next to the criminal definitions and the difference is immediate.
NRS 200.010 defines murder as “the unlawful killing of a human being” with malice aforethought, express or implied, or caused by a controlled substance made available in violation of the drug statutes. NRS 200.040 defines manslaughter as “the unlawful killing of a human being, without malice express or implied, and without any mixture of deliberation,” and specifies that it “must be voluntary, upon a sudden heat of passion, caused by a provocation apparently sufficient to make the passion irresistible, or involuntary, in the commission of an unlawful act, or a lawful act without due caution or circumspection.” NRS 200.070 defines involuntary manslaughter as a killing “without any intent to do so, in the commission of an unlawful act, or a lawful act which probably might produce such a consequence in an unlawful manner.”
Every one of those begins from an unlawful killing. The civil statute begins from “the wrongful act or neglect of another.”
Neglect is the gap between them, and it is a wide one. A driver who looks away, a property owner who leaves a hazard unaddressed, a business that fails to train or supervise, a professional who misses something they should have caught — none of that is an unlawful killing, and none of it is ordinarily a crime. All of it can be the neglect the wrongful death statute is about.
That gap is what the phrase is really about. A wrongful death is not a downgraded homicide. It answers a different question altogether: not whether someone committed an offence against the public, but whether a death was caused by conduct for which someone is answerable to the family.
Who Can Be Sued, Including an Employer and a Wrongdoer Who Has Died
NRS 41.085(2) does not stop at the person who caused the death. It extends in two directions, and both matter in practice more than they sound.
The first is death on the defendant’s side. An action may be maintained against the person who caused the death “or if the wrongdoer is dead, against the wrongdoer’s personal representatives, whether the wrongdoer died before or after the death of the person injured by the wrongdoer.” A collision that kills both drivers does not extinguish the claim. Nor does a wrongdoer who dies during the litigation.
The second is responsibility held by someone else. The statute provides that “if any other person is responsible for the wrongful act or neglect, or if the wrongdoer is employed by another person who is responsible for the wrongdoer’s conduct, the action may be maintained against that other person, or if the other person is dead, against the other person’s personal representatives.”
So the employer of a driver, and anyone else responsible for the act or neglect, is within the statute’s reach by its own words. This is frequently the difference between a claim with a realistic route to recovery and one without, and it is a question about the relationships around the death rather than about the death itself.
A Prosecution Asks a Different Question
A criminal case and a wrongful death claim are not two attempts at the same thing. They have different parties, different purposes and different standards.
The State brings a prosecution, and the family is not the party to it. What a prosecution establishes is whether an offence against the public was committed, and what it produces is a sentence. A wrongful death action is brought by the heirs and the personal representatives, establishes whether a death was caused by a wrongful act or neglect, and produces a recovery for them.
The standards differ too, and Nevada defines its criminal standard with unusual precision. NRS 175.191 provides that “a defendant in a criminal action is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved; and in case of a reasonable doubt whether the defendant’s guilt is satisfactorily shown, the defendant is entitled to be acquitted.” NRS 175.211(1) then defines the doubt itself: “a reasonable doubt is one based on reason. It is not mere possible doubt, but is such a doubt as would govern or control a person in the more weighty affairs of life.” Subsection 2 closes the question off: “no other definition of reasonable doubt may be given by the court to juries in criminal actions in this State.”
A civil claim is not tried to that standard. Nothing in the wrongful death statute imports it, and nothing in the statute makes a charge, a trial or a conviction a condition of the civil action.
Why the Two Can End Differently
Once the two systems are seen to be asking different questions, outcomes that look inconsistent stop being puzzling.
A prosecution can fail while a civil claim succeeds, because the conduct that was not proved to be an offence may still have been neglect. A death can produce no charge at all and still support a claim, because most neglect is not criminal in the first place. And a criminal case can conclude long before or long after the civil case, because the two run on separate tracks with separate parties and separate timetables.
Where a criminal case does exist, what happens in it can matter on the civil side. Nevada legislates for that interaction at NRS 41.133, but the operative text of that section could not be read from a primary source for this page and is therefore not reproduced. Whether and how a conviction bears on a particular civil claim is a question to put to a lawyer rather than to settle from a summary.
Speak to a Nevada Wrongful Death Attorney
Whether a death falls within the statute is a question about conduct and causation, and it is answerable without waiting to see what any prosecutor decides to do.
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
It is a civil claim arising where, in the words of NRS 41.085(2), "the death of any person, whether or not a minor, is caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another." Both the heirs and the decedent's personal representatives may each bring one.
No. It is a civil claim. Nevada's criminal homicide definitions in NRS 200.010, 200.040 and 200.070 all begin from an unlawful killing, whereas the wrongful death statute asks only whether the death was caused by a wrongful act or neglect.
The statute does not list examples, and whether particular conduct amounts to neglect is decided on the facts. What the wording establishes is that neglect is enough, so conduct that no prosecutor would charge can still fall within the statute.
Yes. NRS 41.085(2) applies where the death is of "any person, whether or not a minor," so the statute covers it by its own terms rather than through a separate provision.
The statute contemplates it. NRS 41.085(2) provides that where the wrongdoer "is employed by another person who is responsible for the wrongdoer's conduct, the action may be maintained against that other person," as it may against any other person responsible for the wrongful act or neglect.
The claim survives the wrongdoer. The action may be maintained against the wrongdoer's personal representatives, and the statute says this applies "whether the wrongdoer died before or after the death of the person injured by the wrongdoer."
By a standard the statutes define. Under NRS 175.191 a criminal defendant "is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved" and is entitled to acquittal in case of a reasonable doubt, and NRS 175.211 defines reasonable doubt and provides that no other definition may be given to juries in Nevada.
No. In a prosecution the State is the party and the proceeding is directed at an offence against the public. A wrongful death action is the family's own civil claim, brought in their own names.
