Personal injury in
Houston.
Houston personal injury settlements are shaped by Texas' aggressive tort-reform regime, the 51% modified-comparative bar, and the dominance of oil-and-gas industry and trucking claims in the metro.
Houston personal injury practice operates within Texas's post-2003 tort-reform framework. Modified-comparative fault with a 51% bar (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001), a strict 2-year limitation (§ 16.003), and a $250k / $500k non-economic cap on medical malpractice (§ 74.301) collectively compress upper-tier verdicts substantially below what the same fact pattern would produce in Illinois or California.
Harris County District Courts handle the bulk of metro filings, with cases assigned across the 1st through 281st courts. Jury skew is moderate-to-plaintiff-friendly in catastrophic cases, but the post-reform statutory environment caps the headline figure regardless of jury sentiment.
Industry-specific claim categories dominate Houston filings. Oil and gas workers — both upstream rig workers and downstream refinery employees — generate a unique line of Jones Act and OCSLA claims. Trucking on I-45 and I-10 produces a high volume of serious-injury filings at rates among the highest of any US metro.