TX
Back & spine settlements
in Texas.
Texas measures medical damages by what was actually paid. A driver who needed neck and shoulder surgeries had $110,069 in bills, and the Supreme Court held he could recover only the $27,739 his providers could lawfully charge.
Facts that decide a back & spine claim in Texas
| Medical bills | Recovery of medical expenses is “limited to the amount actually paid or incurred by or on behalf of the claimant”; amounts a provider may not charge are excluded.Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.0105; Haygood v. De Escabedo (Tex. 2011) |
|---|---|
| Future medical costs | An award for future medical expenses needs evidence of the care reasonably likely to be required; a jury’s $120,000 future medical award was set aside for lack of it.LMMM Houston 41 v. Santibanez (Tex. App. 2018) |
| Deadline to sue | A person must bring suit for personal injury “not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues,” and must use diligence to serve the defendant.Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a), as quoted in Carias v. Owens (Tex. App. 2022) |
| Fault rule | “A claimant may not recover damages if his percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent”; at 50% or less, damages are reduced by that share.Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001, as quoted in GEICO County Mutual v. Bogale (Tex. App. 2019) |
| Seat belt use | Admissible to apportion responsibility when relevant to the injuries.Nabors Well Services v. Romero (Tex. 2015), in the MyClaimWorth seat belt chart |
| Texas jury awards | In 21 Texas jury verdicts for a herniated or bulging disc from 2018 to 2025, the median award was $157,540, from $0 to more than $12 million; four disc awards were cut or reversed for lack of expert proof that the crash caused the injury.MyClaimWorth review of 57 Texas car crash appeals, November 2026 |