Oh, and your Dad's widow is the one who should have standing for a lawsuit, not you.
That's not correct. Under Washington state law, a child also has standing to bring a wrongful death claim:
Every such action shall be for the benefit of the wife, husband, state registered domestic partner, child or children, including stepchildren, of the person whose death shall have been so caused. If there be no wife, husband, state registered domestic partner, or such child or children, such action may be maintained for the benefit of the parents, sisters, or brothers, who may be dependent upon the deceased person for support, and who are resident within the United States at the time of his or her death.
In every such action the jury may give such damages as, under all circumstances of the case, may to them seem just.
Wash. Rev. Code Ann. § 4.20.020. The wrongful death statute allows the plaintiff to seek noneconomic damages against the defendant. In addition to that, the estate may also sue for economic damages under Washington's general survival statute even though the estate is not named as a party that may sue for wrongful death. The Washington Court of Appeals explained:
The general survival statute preserves all causes of action that a decedent could have brought had he or she survived. Otani ex rel. Shigaki v. Broudy, 151 Wash.2d 750, 755–56, 92 P.3d 192 (2004). The purpose of awarding damages under the survival statute is to remedy the common law anomaly that allowed tort victims to sue if they survived, but barred their claims if they died. Otani, 151 Wash.2d at 755, 92 P.3d 192. The general survival statute provides in part,
All causes of action by a person or persons against another person or persons shall survive to the personal representatives of the former and against the personal representatives of the latter, whether such actions arise on contract or otherwise, and whether or not such actions would have survived at the common law or prior to the date of enactment of this section: PROVIDED, HOWEVER, That the personal representative shall only be entitled to recover damages for pain and suffering, anxiety, emotional distress, or humiliation personal to and suffered by a deceased on behalf of those beneficiaries enumerated in RCW 4.20.020, and such damages are recoverable regardless of whether or not the death was occasioned by the injury that is the basis for the action.
RCW 4.20.046(1) (emphasis added). By its language, the general survival statute adopts the “two-tiered” system of beneficiaries featured in the wrongful death statute for noneconomic damages.
¶ 16 But the statute's plain language does not preclude David's estate from recovering purely economic damages despite the fact that Earl is not a statutory beneficiary. Accordingly, we agree that the superior court erred when it dismissed Earl's claim for economic damages.
Vernon v. Aacres Allvest, LLC, 183 Wash. App. 422, 430–31, 333 P.3d 534, 538 (2014)(Italics in original).