What Damages Can I Recover After a Car Accident in Texas?

When you are injured in a car accident in Texas that was caused by another driver’s negligence, you are entitled to recover compensation — called damages — for the full range of harm the accident caused to your life. Texas personal injury law does not limit your recovery to the cost of your medical bills. The damages available in a Texas car accident claim include economic losses that can be calculated precisely, non-economic losses that compensate for harms that have no precise dollar value, and in cases involving particularly egregious conduct, exemplary damages designed to punish and deter.

Understanding what categories of damages are available, how each personal injury is calculated, and what evidence supports each category gives you a complete picture of what your claim is actually worth — which is information you need before any settlement offer from an insurance company is evaluated. Insurance adjusters are trained to settle claims for as little as possible. A claimant who understands the full range of damages they are entitled to is in a fundamentally different negotiating position than one who accepts the first offer because they do not know what they are giving up.

Economic Damages — What Can Be Calculated

Economic damages are the categories of harm that have a specific, calculable dollar value. They include past and future medical expenses, past and future lost income, and property damage.

Medical Expenses — Past and Future

The most straightforward category of economic damages is the cost of medical treatment caused by the accident. This includes every medical expense from the date of the accident forward — emergency room treatment, ambulance transportation, hospitalization, surgery, physical therapy, chiropractic treatment, pain management, prescription medications, medical equipment, and any other treatment required as a result of the injuries.

Past medical expenses — treatment already received by the time the claim is resolved — are documented through medical bills and records and represent a specific, known dollar figure. Future medical expenses — treatment that will be required going forward — require medical expert testimony establishing what future care is reasonably necessary and what it will cost. Injuries that require ongoing treatment, future surgeries, long-term physical therapy, or permanent medical management generate future medical expense claims that can substantially exceed the past medical expenses already incurred.

In Texas, the recoverable amount for medical expenses is the reasonable and necessary amount of the medical bills — not necessarily the full amount billed. When medical providers bill at rates that exceed what insurers typically pay, Texas courts evaluate the reasonable value of the services provided rather than the face amount of every bill. The landmark Texas Supreme Court case Haygood v. de Escabedo established the framework for this analysis, and presenting medical expense evidence effectively requires understanding how Texas courts evaluate the reasonable value of medical services.

Lost Income — Past and Future

When injuries from a car accident prevent you from working — either temporarily during recovery or permanently due to lasting disability — the lost income is recoverable as economic damages. Past lost income is calculated based on the income actually lost from the date of the accident through the date of resolution — documented through pay stubs, tax returns, employer records, and testimony from the injured person and their employer.

Future lost income — income that will be lost going forward due to the lasting effects of the injuries — requires more complex analysis. For a wage employee whose injuries prevent them from returning to their job, future lost income is calculated based on their pre-accident earnings extended over their remaining work life expectancy. For a self-employed person, the calculation involves reconstructing the business’s income history and projecting forward. For a person whose injuries reduce their earning capacity without preventing all work — someone who can no longer perform their prior job but can work in a lower-paying capacity — the claim is for the differential between what they could have earned and what they can earn after the injury, extended over their remaining work life.

Future lost income claims in significant injury cases are typically supported by expert testimony from a vocational rehabilitation expert who evaluates the injured person’s work capacity and limitations, and an economist who calculates the present value of the projected future income loss.

Property Damage

The cost to repair or replace your vehicle and any other personal property damaged in the accident is recoverable as economic damages. When a vehicle is repairable, the cost of repair is the measure. When a vehicle is totaled — when the cost of repair exceeds the vehicle’s fair market value — the fair market value of the vehicle at the time of the accident is the measure, not the replacement cost of a new vehicle.

Loss of use — the cost of a rental vehicle or the economic value of being without your vehicle while repairs are made — is also recoverable as part of the property damage claim.

Non-Economic Damages — What Cannot Be Precisely Calculated

Non-economic damages compensate for harms that are real and significant but that do not have a specific price tag. They include pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of consortium, and disfigurement.

Pain and Suffering

Pain and suffering is the compensation for the physical pain and discomfort the injured person has experienced and will continue to experience as a result of the accident. It addresses the daily experience of living with an injury — the pain of a herniated disc that radiates into the legs every time you sit for more than twenty minutes, the headaches from a traumatic brain injury that interrupt every workday, the limited range of motion in a shoulder that makes lifting your children painful. These are real harms that affect the quality of your daily life, and Texas law recognizes them as compensable.

Pain and suffering damages are not calculated by a formula — they are evaluated by a jury based on the evidence presented about the nature and severity of the injuries, the duration and extent of the suffering, and the impact on the injured person’s daily activities and quality of life. A pain journal — daily documentation of symptoms, limitations, and pain levels maintained from the time of the accident forward — is one of the most effective tools for supporting a pain and suffering claim.

Mental Anguish

Mental anguish is the compensation for the psychological and emotional distress caused by the accident and its aftermath. This includes anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, fear of driving, and other psychological harm resulting from the traumatic experience of the accident and the recovery process. Mental anguish damages require evidence beyond a simple assertion of distress — medical records from mental health treatment, psychological evaluation, and testimony from the injured person and their family members about the observable impact of the emotional distress on daily life.

Loss of Enjoyment of Life

Loss of enjoyment of life — sometimes called hedonic damages — compensates for the loss of the ability to participate in activities the injured person previously enjoyed. A runner who can no longer run due to a knee injury, a guitarist whose hand injury prevents playing, a parent who can no longer participate in outdoor activities with their children — these losses are real and compensable in Texas. They are established through testimony about what the injured person did before the accident and what they are no longer able to do as a result of the injuries.

Loss of Consortium

Loss of consortium is a claim brought by the spouse of a seriously injured person for the loss of the benefits of the marital relationship — companionship, affection, comfort, and sexual relations — that resulted from the injuries. It is a separate claim belonging to the spouse, not to the injured person, and must be pleaded and pursued by the spouse as part of the overall case. Loss of consortium claims are most significant in cases involving severe, permanent injuries that fundamentally alter the nature of the marital relationship.

Disfigurement and Physical Impairment

When the injuries produce permanent scarring, disfigurement, or lasting physical impairment, additional compensation is available for those specific harms. Disfigurement compensates for the altered physical appearance resulting from scars, burns, or other visible permanent changes. Physical impairment compensates for the permanent loss of physical function — the inability to walk normally, to use a limb fully, or to perform physical activities that the person could perform before the accident.

Exemplary Damages — When the Defendant’s Conduct Was Egregious

Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 41.003 authorizes exemplary damages — also called punitive damages — when the defendant’s conduct constituting the basis for liability was the result of fraud, malice, or gross negligence. Gross negligence requires an act or omission that, when viewed objectively, involves an extreme degree of risk and of which the defendant had actual, subjective awareness of the risk but nevertheless proceeded with conscious indifference to the rights, safety, or welfare of others.

In car accident cases, exemplary damages are most commonly sought against drunk drivers — whose decision to drive while intoxicated, with full knowledge of the risk to others, can constitute gross negligence — and against defendants whose conduct was particularly reckless or egregious. Exemplary damages are capped in Texas at the greater of $200,000 or two times the economic damages plus an amount equal to the non-economic damages not to exceed $750,000.

The cap on exemplary damages does not cap compensatory damages — economic and non-economic damages are not subject to a statutory cap in most Texas car accident cases. The significant exception is medical malpractice, where Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 74.301 caps non-economic damages in healthcare liability claims.

How Comparative Fault Affects Your Recovery

Texas follows a modified comparative fault rule under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001. If you are found to be partially at fault for the accident, your damages are reduced proportionally by your percentage of fault. If you are found to be 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing. If you are found to be 49% at fault and your total damages are $100,000, you recover $51,000.

Insurance adjusters frequently attempt to assign partial fault to the injured party as a strategy for reducing the settlement value of the claim. A claimant represented by an attorney who understands how comparative fault is evaluated and who builds the case to minimize the plaintiff’s apparent fault recovers more than one who accepts a fault allocation without challenging it.

Barton & Associates handles car accident injury cases in San Antonio and Bexar County, Austin and Corpus Christi, Texas. If you were injured in a car accident, call 210-500-0000 for a free consultation available 24 hours a day with a personal injury attorney.