When someone else causes you an injury due to their careless, reckless, or wrongful actions, it’s legal negligence on their part, entitling you to file a compensation claim for your damages, typically against the negligent party’s insurance. Some states have legal limits or “caps” on some types of personal injury claims. Before filing a claim, you may wish to learn more about damages caps in Texas personal injury claims.
No Caps on Standard Personal Injury Claims Based on Negligence
The Texas Constitution describes “damages” as follows:
“Economic damages” means compensatory damages intended to compensate a claimant for actual economic or pecuniary loss; the term does not include exemplary damages or noneconomic damages… “Compensatory damages” means economic and noneconomic damages…”
Most personal injury claims are filed against a negligent party in claims such as:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Premises liability claims, such as slip-and-fall accidents, pool injuries, and structure fires
- Dog bites
- Wrongful death
In standard Texas personal injury claims, the state does not limit or cap compensation for economic damages, like medical expenses, lost wages, and out-of-pocket costs, nor for non-economic damages like pain and suffering.
In addition, the modified comparative negligence system in Texas allows an injury victim to recover compensation from multiple parties if they’ve contributed to the cause of the injury.
While the state does not cap personal injury damages, an insurance company may reduce an injury victim’s claim by their percentage of fault if the insurer determines that the injury victim’s actions contributed to their own injury.
Texas Caps Non-Economic Damages In Medical Malpractice and Wrongful Death Claims
While most personal injury claims are based on negligence, or the violation of the ordinary duty of reasonable care all parties have toward the safety of others, medical professionals are held to a higher standard. A doctor’s or other provider’s duty of care is to treat a patient at the medical community’s accepted standard of care.
The Texas legislature placed caps on non-economic damages (for pain, suffering, emotional trauma, grief, anguish, and other intangible losses) in medical malpractice claims in 2003. The damage cap may also apply to some non-medical economic losses. Under this law, medical malpractice caps limit recovery to the following:
- $250,000 per person against a single provider or $500,000 against multiple providers for non-economic damages, or generally capped at $750,000 per injury victim in medical malpractice claims
- In Texas wrongful death claims, the state caps punitive damages at $750,000. Punitive damages serve not as compensation to an injury victim, but as a punishment and deterrent to wrongdoers
In addition, some government entities, like city, county, state, or federal agencies, also cap non-economic damages in liability claims.
How Can a Texas Personal Injury Lawyer Help My Case?
If you have questions about how the state’s damage caps on specific categories of Texas personal injury claims affect your case, it’s important to speak with an experienced Texas personal injury attorney. Call or contact GreeningLaw, P.C. online to learn more about your legal rights based on the unique circumstances of your case.
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