Texas Personal Injury Questions, Answered Plainly

The proven cost of the injury: medical care already received and still ahead, lost income and earning capacity, and the pain, impairment, and disfigurement that remain. Texas places no cap on these damages in an ordinary negligence case. Value therefore turns on severity, permanence, the quality of the proof, and the insurance available. Nobody can honestly quote a number without reading your medical records.

No. Texas is a fault state: the person or company that caused the harm pays for it, through their liability insurer or their own assets. There is no no-fault step to clear first. You pursue the at-fault party's insurance directly, and your own coverage, like uninsured motorist protection, applies when theirs runs out or does not exist.

Texas uses modified comparative fault with a 51 percent bar under Chapter 33. Your recovery is reduced by your percentage of responsibility, and you recover nothing if your share exceeds 50 percent. On a 200,000-dollar claim, 20 percent fault leaves 160,000 dollars. That cliff at 51 is why insurers push fault onto victims so hard, and why the fault percentage is worth fighting point by point.

Not in ordinary negligence cases: car crashes, falls, work injuries, and defective products carry no cap on economic or non-economic damages. The main exceptions: medical malpractice non-economic damages are capped between 250,000 and 750,000 dollars depending on the defendants; claims against government entities carry Tort Claims Act caps; and exemplary damages sit under their own statutory formula.

30,000 dollars per injured person, 60,000 per accident, and 25,000 for property damage, the 30/60/25 policy. A single serious injury can exhaust those limits in days, which is why underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy, employer liability behind working drivers, and other coverage sources decide the real recovery in many Texas cases.

Often, yes, and this is Texas's most unusual rule. Employers here may opt out of workers' compensation, and an employee of one of these non-subscribers can sue the employer for negligence, with the employer stripped of the comparative-fault, assumption-of-risk, and co-worker defenses. If the employer carries comp, your claim against it runs through that system, but negligent third parties on the site remain fully suable. Immigration status changes none of this.

Yes, under the Texas Dram Shop Act in Alcoholic Beverage Code Chapter 2. A licensed provider that served alcohol to a person who was obviously intoxicated, to the point of presenting a clear danger, shares liability for the crash that person caused. The proof lives in tabs, pour records, and bar video, all of which are overwritten quickly, so these claims reward fast action.

Under Section 41.0105, recoverable medical damages are limited to amounts actually paid or owed, not the higher sticker price on the bill, and adjusters quietly price claims off the discounted figures. Hospital liens can attach to a settlement, and pre-trial affidavit rules govern how bills get proved. These mechanics move real money in nearly every case, usually against the unprepared.

Yes. Since the Texas Supreme Court's 2015 Nabors decision, seat belt nonuse is admissible when the defense connects it to the injuries. It affects the damages fight, never the other driver's responsibility for causing the crash, and it is one more reason the fault-and-causation record needs to be built carefully.

House Bill 19, effective September 2021, lets commercial-vehicle defendants demand a two-phase trial: the driver's fault and your compensatory damages first, with most claims against the carrier itself, like negligent hiring and training, pushed to a second phase. It changed trial sequence, and it made thorough case preparation matter even more in Texas truck claims.

Nothing up front at our firm. Representation is on contingency: Lawsuit Legal advances the case costs, including investigators and experts, and the fee comes out of the recovery, only if there is one. The consultation is free, confidential, and available in English or Spanish. If you lose, you owe nothing.

Not always. A minor claim with small medical bills and clear fault can often be handled alone, and an honest firm will say so. A lawyer changes outcomes where the injuries are serious, fault is contested, a commercial defendant or government entity is involved, or the insurer's offer arrived before the full cost of the injury was known. The free consultation is how you find out which kind of claim you have.

Get medical care and follow through with it; the treatment record becomes the proof. Report the crash or injury to the right party: police, employer, property owner. Photograph everything, keep names of witnesses, and preserve the vehicle or product that hurt you. Decline recorded statements to the other side's insurer until you have advice. None of this requires deciding anything about a lawsuit; it just keeps every option alive.