Practice area
Catastrophic & Complex Injury Lawyers in Texas
A catastrophic injury or wrongful-death claim under Texas law is a case where the loss is so severe that ordinary damages categories no longer capture it: lifelong medical care, permanent loss of earning capacity, or the death of a family member. The Texas Wrongful Death Act (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.004) gives the surviving spouse, children, and parents a cause of action for the death itself; the survival statute (§ 71.021) preserves the decedent's own pre-death claims for the estate. Both run on the two-year limitations period in § 16.003, and both can carry exemplary damages under § 41.003 when gross negligence is established by clear and convincing evidence.
Wrongful death: who can recover, and for what
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.004 limits wrongful-death plaintiffs to the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the decedent. Siblings and unmarried partners have no standing. Recoverable damages under the Act include pecuniary loss (the contributions and services the survivor would have received from the decedent), loss of companionship and society, mental anguish, loss of inheritance, and — when gross negligence is established — exemplary damages. The survival action under § 71.021 is brought by the estate and recovers the decedent's own pre-death pain and mental anguish, medical and funeral expenses, and any other damages the decedent could have recovered had they lived. Both claims are typically prosecuted together, and the allocation among heirs requires careful coordination with probate counsel.
Traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, and the future-care file
Catastrophic injury cases short of death tend to cluster in two diagnostic categories: traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury. TBI ranges from moderate concussive injury with persistent cognitive deficits to severe diffuse axonal injury requiring long-term residential care; SCI ranges from incomplete cord injury with partial recovery potential to complete cervical-level injury producing tetraplegia. In both, the long-term cost profile dwarfs the initial hospitalization. A credible damages presentation requires a life-care plan from a certified life-care planner — not a casual projection — that itemizes attendant care, equipment replacement cycles, home modification, transportation, medications, therapy, and complication-management costs across the client's remaining life expectancy.
Life-care planning and economic projection
The life-care plan is the spine of any serious catastrophic-injury demand. The plan is built by a credentialed life-care planner working with the treating physicians, and projects every category of future medical and supportive cost in current dollars and (in coordination with an economist) reduced to present value over the client's life expectancy. Categories typically include physician follow-up, attendant or skilled nursing care, durable medical equipment with realistic replacement schedules, prescription medications, therapies (physical, occupational, speech, behavioral), supplies, home and vehicle modifications, and projected complications appropriate to the diagnosis. The economist then translates the plan into a present-value figure and adds lost earning capacity calculated from the client's pre-injury earnings trajectory.
Exemplary damages and when gross negligence comes in
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.003 authorizes exemplary (punitive) damages on clear-and-convincing evidence of gross negligence, malice, or fraud. Gross negligence requires both an objective component (an act or omission involving an extreme degree of risk, considering the probability and magnitude of potential harm) and a subjective component (actual, subjective awareness of the risk and conscious indifference to it). In catastrophic injury cases, the typical triggers are commercial-defendant conduct: a trucking company that knew of falsified hours-of-service logs, an employer that knew of a recurring hazard and did nothing, a manufacturer that knew of a defect and continued to ship. The exemplary-damages cap under § 41.008 applies but allows substantial additional recovery in qualifying cases.
Frequently asked
Questions Texas accident victims ask us
- Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.004, only the surviving spouse, children (including adopted children), and parents of the decedent have standing to file a wrongful-death claim. Siblings, grandparents, unmarried partners, and other relatives have no standing under the Wrongful Death Act regardless of their relationship with the decedent. If any one of the eligible plaintiffs does not file within three calendar months after death, any other eligible plaintiff (or the personal representative of the estate) may file on behalf of all.
- They are two different claims that typically run together. The wrongful-death claim under § 71.004 belongs to the surviving family members and compensates them for what they lost when the decedent died: financial contributions, companionship, society, mental anguish. The survival action under § 71.021 belongs to the decedent's estate and recovers what the decedent could have recovered if they had lived: pre-death pain and mental anguish, medical bills, funeral expenses. Both claims are governed by the same two-year limitations period.
- Pecuniary loss (lost financial support, lost services, lost gifts and benefits, lost inheritance), loss of companionship and society, mental anguish, and — on clear-and-convincing evidence of gross negligence, malice, or fraud — exemplary damages under § 41.003. The pecuniary calculation typically requires an economist who projects the decedent's future earnings, household services, and other contributions reduced to present value. Loss of companionship and mental anguish are non-economic and depend heavily on the strength of the documentary and testimonial record.
- A life-care plan is a comprehensive projection of every medical and supportive cost a catastrophically injured person will incur over their remaining life expectancy. It is prepared by a credentialed life-care planner working with treating physicians and itemizes attendant care, durable medical equipment with realistic replacement cycles, medications, therapies, home and vehicle modifications, and projected complications. The plan is then translated into present-value dollars by an economist. Without a credible life-care plan, future medical damages claims are too speculative to support a meaningful demand or trial presentation, and the defense will price the case at the bottom of the range.
- Gross negligence under Texas Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.001(11) requires an act or omission involving an extreme degree of risk that the defendant had actual, subjective awareness of and proceeded with conscious indifference to. It is a higher standard than ordinary negligence and must be proven by clear and convincing evidence. When established, it unlocks exemplary (punitive) damages under § 41.003, subject to the statutory cap in § 41.008. In catastrophic-injury cases involving commercial defendants with documented prior knowledge of a hazard, gross negligence is often the engine that drives full recovery.
- Two years from the date of death (for wrongful death) or the date of injury (for catastrophic injury) under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003. Tolling for minor heirs and certain other categories of plaintiffs may extend the deadline as to those specific plaintiffs, but the practical evidence-preservation timeline is far shorter than two years, particularly in commercial-defendant cases where electronic records, telematics, and corporate retention schedules drive critical evidence out of reach within months.
- It depends on the type of damages and the defendant. There is no cap on economic damages (medical bills, lost earnings, future medical costs, future lost earning capacity) in ordinary negligence cases. Non-economic damages are uncapped in ordinary cases but capped in medical-malpractice cases under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 74.301. Exemplary damages are capped under § 41.008 at the greater of $200,000 or twice the economic damages plus up to $750,000 of non-economic damages (with statutory exceptions). Cases against governmental entities are capped separately under the Texas Tort Claims Act.
- Catastrophic cases require sustained attorney attention that volume operations are structurally not set up to provide. The life-care plan, economic projections, expert coordination, multi-policy coverage analysis, and (when needed) the trial preparation are all attorney-driven work products that benefit directly from a small caseload. We deliberately keep the firm small so the attorney handling a catastrophic file is the one building the medical chronology with the treating physicians, working with the life-care planner, and developing the damages presentation, not handing the file to a paralegal between policy-limits demands.
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