States With Caps on Wrongful Death Damages

By the FigureMyTax Editorial Team · How we calculate

Colorado's wrongful death cap more than tripled in 2025 — and disappears entirely for the most serious cases.

A threefold increase

Under House Bill 24-1472, Colorado's wrongful death damages cap rose from roughly $598,350 (the prior adjusted figure) to $2,125,000 for claims filed on or after January 1, 2025 — a substantially larger jump than the parallel increase in the ordinary injury cap, and now about 40% higher than that $1.5 million ordinary-injury figure.

No cap at all for a felonious killing

Colorado's statute includes a complete exception: there is no cap whatsoever if the wrongful act that caused the death constitutes a felonious killing as defined under Colorado law. This isn't a higher ceiling — it removes the dollar limit entirely, reflecting the view that caps designed to manage ordinary negligence litigation shouldn't shield the most serious criminal conduct.

How other states handle it differently

Nationally, states take genuinely different structural approaches. Some fold wrongful death into the same noneconomic damages cap that applies to severe personal injury generally. Others, like Colorado, set an entirely separate wrongful-death-specific figure. A handful of states prohibit capping either category by constitutional provision.

Medical malpractice stays on its own lower track

Even with the general wrongful death cap at $2.125 million, a death caused by medical malpractice follows a separate, lower schedule — $810,000 in 2026, rising to $1,575,000 by 2029 — preserving Colorado's longstanding distinction between malpractice and ordinary tort claims.

This is general information, not legal advice, and the state comparisons above are illustrative, not an exhaustive survey. Confirm the current rule in any state with a licensed attorney there.