Car Accident Compensation in Texas: What Is Recoverable
Compensation is not one number. Texas recognizes several distinct categories, each proved differently, and the ones most often left out of a claim are the ones no invoice records.
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Medical costs, past and future
Past treatment is the most straightforward category, documented by bills and records: emergency care, imaging, surgery, physical therapy and medication.
Future medical cost has to be established by medical opinion rather than assumed. Hardware removal, injections, revision surgery and the predictable progression of post-traumatic arthritis are all recoverable, but only where a treating physician or expert will say they are reasonably probable.
Lost income, and the larger category behind it
Lost income is the wages actually missed, proved with payroll records and an employer letter. It is the narrower of the two earnings categories.
Lost earning capacity is the reduction in what you are able to earn going forward. Someone who returns to the same job at the same pay can still have lost capacity if the injury has closed off overtime, promotion, physical work or a whole trade. It requires medical evidence on restrictions and vocational evidence on what work those restrictions permit.
Physical pain and mental anguish
Recoverable for the past and for the future. There is no multiplier and no formula that a Texas court applies, whatever online calculators suggest.
What moves this category is specific evidenced consequence. Not that there was pain, which is assumed, but what the pain prevented: the sleep, the work, the sport, lifting a child. Concrete detail persuades where adjectives do not.
Physical impairment
A separate category in Texas and one of the two most often omitted. It covers the loss of the ability to do things, independent of whether those things earned money.
Walking distance, stairs, kneeling, carrying, driving, sport, hobbies and the ordinary business of running a household all sit here. It appears on no bill, so a claim built from invoices leaves it out entirely.
Disfigurement
The other commonly omitted category. Permanent scarring is compensable in its own right, separately from pain and from impairment.
Surgical scarring counts as much as scarring from the collision itself, which matters because any operation leaves a permanent mark. Evidence is photographic and needs building over months as healing progresses, not a single image taken at discharge.
Property, out of pocket and household services
The vehicle, and anything in it that was destroyed. Diminished value, where a repaired vehicle is worth less than an equivalent one that was never damaged, is recoverable in Texas and is routinely not claimed.
Travel to appointments, prescriptions, mobility aids, and the cost of paying someone to do what the injury prevents, from childcare to yard work. All recoverable to the extent it can be evidenced, which means keeping receipts.
Exemplary damages, in narrow circumstances
Where conduct went beyond negligence into gross negligence, Texas permits exemplary damages on clear and convincing evidence, subject to statutory caps.
Drunk driving is the most common context in car cases. It is a real but narrow category and not an expected component of an ordinary claim.
Summary
| Category | Covers | Proved by |
|---|---|---|
| Past medical | Treatment to date | Bills and records |
| Future medical | Surgery, injections, ongoing care | Medical opinion |
| Lost income | Wages actually missed | Payroll records |
| Lost earning capacity | Reduction in what you can earn | Medical and vocational opinion |
| Pain and mental anguish | Past and future | Specific evidenced consequence |
| Physical impairment | Lost ability, separate from income | Treating and lay evidence |
| Disfigurement | Permanent scarring, including surgical | Photographs over months |
| Property and diminished value | Vehicle and contents | Valuation evidence |
| Household services | Paying others for what you cannot do | Receipts and records |
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Frequently asked questions
Past and future medical costs, lost income, lost earning capacity, physical pain and mental anguish, physical impairment, disfigurement, property damage including diminished value, and household services. Exemplary damages only where conduct amounted to gross negligence.
It covers the loss of the ability to do things, independent of income or pain: walking, stairs, kneeling, carrying, sport, running a household. Texas treats it as its own category and it appears on no invoice, so claims built from bills omit it.
Yes. Disfigurement is a separate compensable category and surgical scarring counts as much as scarring from the collision itself. Photograph it as healing progresses rather than relying on a single hospital image.
Generally yes. Where a repaired vehicle is worth less than an equivalent undamaged one, that difference is a real loss. It is routinely not claimed because people assume repair costs are the whole of the property claim.
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