Sugar Land Personal Injury Attorney

Personal Injury Laws & Regulations Worth Knowing

At Bianca Calderón de Lachica Law Firm, we handle all the legal paperwork and challenges for you so that you can focus on your own health and well-being. There are certain Texas laws worth knowing, however, so you can have some informed expectations of what a personal injury case can look like.

You can still recover damages even if you were partially at fault. Texas follows a “proportionate responsibility” rule, which can also be called modified comparative negligence. That means you can still seek financial compensation for an accident in which you share some of the blame, as long as you aren’t found to be more than 50% responsible. Whatever percentage of fault you carry is deducted from your award. So if you were considered 30% at fault for a car crash where you would have otherwise recovered $100,000 in damages, your settlement would be reduced by that percentage, and you could still recover $70,000. If you are found to be 51% or more at fault, however, Texas law bars you from recovering any compensation.

Texas limits compensation in some cases. These caps on damages affect medical malpractice cases specifically. When it comes to non-economic damages, like pain and suffering, state law says that you can only recover up to $250,000 per defendant, and no more than $500,000 total if more than one person is being sued.

There is a time limit. Statewide, there is a limited timeframe within which personal injury claims must be filed, a deadline that’s known as the statute of limitations. While having two years after an accident may sound like a long time, serious injuries can consume so much of your attention that it’s easy to be overwhelmed and unready to think about legal paperwork. It’s crucial to contact an injury lawyer as soon as you’re able to, so that important deadlines and evidence aren’t lost.