Understand Your Rights. Solve Your Legal Problems
Every year, thousands of Texans are injured or killed in serious highway and trucking accidents—many involving 18-wheelers, commercial carriers, or distracted drivers on busy Houston roads like I-45, I-10, and Beltway 8. When tragedy strikes, families face overwhelming questions: What should we do first? How do we protect our case? Can we afford medical care while waiting for insurance?
In this exclusive Lawyer Monthly Q&A, Houston injury lawyer Greg Baumgartner, one of Texas’s most respected serious injury and wrongful death attorneys, explains how victims can protect their legal rights, preserve crucial evidence, and avoid costly insurance mistakes after catastrophic car and trucking crashes.
With over 40 years of experience and a record of multi-million-dollar recoveries, Greg answers the questions Texans most often ask after life-changing collisions — from understanding Texas’s 51% comparative fault rule to navigating hospital liens, UM/UIM insurance, punitive damages, and wrongful death claims.
Three Critical Actions:
Seek immediate medical evaluation even if you feel okay. Adrenaline masks serious injuries like internal bleeding, brain trauma, and spinal damage. Delayed treatment gives insurers ammunition to claim injuries weren't serious or crash-related.
Ensure complete police documentation. Request a full Texas Peace Officer's Crash Report (CR-3). Collect witness names and contact information yourself—witnesses disappear quickly, and their immediate observations are far more credible than later recollections.
Preserve visual evidence immediately. Photograph vehicle damage, skid marks, road conditions, traffic signals, debris, and nearby businesses with potential surveillance cameras. This evidence vanishes after the next rain or when vehicles get repaired.
What to Avoid:
Never admit fault or apologize—Texas comparative negligence rules mean even "I'm sorry" can be twisted against you. Stay completely off social media; insurers will try to use any post against you. Don't give recorded statements to any insurance company without legal counsel—adjusters are trained to elicit responses that minimize your claim.
The Spoliation Letter – Early Action Required:
Modern vehicles contain Event Data Recorders (EDRs) that capture pre-crash speed, braking, and steering data—often stored for only 30–60 days before being overwritten. Spoliation letters must go out within 24–48 hours to the at-fault driver, their insurer, commercial carriers, and any business with surveillance footage, formally demanding evidence preservation. Surveillance systems typically record over footage in 7–30 days. Waiting even a week can mean critical evidence is permanently lost. It is essential to connect with an attorney as soon as possible to preserve vital evidence.
How It Works:
Texas uses modified comparative negligence: if you're 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing. At 50% or less, you recover damages reduced by your fault percentage. With $1 million in damages at 30% fault, you receive $700,000. At 51% fault, you get zero—even if catastrophically injured.
Evidence That Reduces Your Fault:
Physical evidence, like impact angles and crash damage, tells objective stories.
Electronic Control Module (ECM) data showing the other driver traveled 70 mph in a 45 mph zone without braking proves fault regardless of your judgment errors.
Video evidence from dashcams, surveillance cameras, or traffic cameras instantly resolves liability facts.
911 calls capture immediate admissions before people construct favorable narratives.
Independent witnesses with no connection to either driver provide credible, unbiased accounts.
When to Pursue Claims Despite Mistakes:
Don't abandon legitimate claims because you made an error. Pursue your case if:
• The other driver's conduct was significantly more dangerous
• Clear evidence supports your version
• Your injuries are catastrophic (even reduced recovery may be substantial)
• The other driver violated specific safety rules (DWI, texting, or commercial violations)
Insurance companies will try to convince you that your case is worthless due to any fault. Don't self-evaluate based on their initial blame narrative—let qualified attorneys assess the full evidence.
Commercial trucking cases differ fundamentally from car crashes. Within hours, carriers dispatch safety teams, lawyers, and investigators who know what evidence matters—and how to conceal it.
Critical Evidence Requiring Immediate Action:
• Electronic data: Trucks record speed, braking, engine performance, and hours of operation. This data can be overwritten or "lost." Spoliation letters must go out to carriers, drivers, equipment lessors, and telematics providers.
• Driver qualification files: Federal law requires carriers to maintain employment history, prior crashes, drug test results, and medical exams. These files expose unsafe driver patterns that are often ignored.
• Maintenance records: These show whether brake failures, tire blowouts, or defects contributed to the crash—and whether the carrier delayed maintenance to save money.
• Hours-of-service logs and dispatch records: Electronic logs show whether drivers exceeded federal hour limits, but dispatch records and text messages often reveal internal pressure to "push through" deadlines.
• Bills of lading and load factors: Cargo weight and securing directly affect stability. Overloaded or imbalanced trailers cause many crashes.
• Multiple responsible parties: Driver, motor carrier, truck owner, shipper, maintenance contractor, and even parts manufacturers may all carry liability.
How Families Protect Evidence While Focusing on Medical Care:
You can’t preserve this evidence yourself while your loved one is in the ICU. Experienced trucking counsel can send spoliation letters, file emergency preservation orders, hire reconstruction experts, and issue subpoenas—while you focus on recovery.
After catastrophic crashes, medical bills become their own crisis, often totaling hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of dollars.
Payment Sources:
Health insurance: Always use it. Insurers negotiate deep discounts, often paying 30–50% of billed rates. Even if insurers have subrogation rights, these can be negotiated.
PIP/MedPay: Personal Injury Protection (PIP) or Medical Payments coverage on your policy pays medical bills regardless of fault.
Texas Hospital Lien Statute:
Hospitals can file liens against personal injury claims for unpaid emergency care. These liens attach to settlements and must be resolved before funds are distributed. Texas law requires hospitals to reduce liens proportionally to attorney fees and costs.
Letters of Protection (LOPs):
When uninsured or denied treatment, LOPs allow medical care now with payment after settlement.
Caution: Avoid inflated rates or unnecessary treatment pushed under an LOP.
Protecting Settlement Funds:
Use health insurance for lower rates. Have attorneys review all liens before settlement. Understand subrogation reductions under state and federal law to protect your recovery.
Fatal crashes create two distinct claims:
• Wrongful death claims compensate family members.
• Survival claims compensate the estate for what the deceased experienced.
Who Has Standing:
Only surviving spouses, children, or parents can file wrongful death claims. Survival actions must be brought by the estate’s executor or administrator.
Wrongful Death Damages Include:
• Loss of financial support and inheritance
• Loss of companionship, society, and guidance
• Mental anguish and emotional suffering
• Funeral and burial expenses
Survival Damages Include:
• Pain and suffering between injury and death
• Medical expenses prior to death
• Lost wages
• Property damage
Early Steps:
• Obtain multiple certified death certificates
• Preserve crash scene evidence
• Secure financial and employment records
• Document relationships with photos and communications
• Begin estate proceedings if necessary
• Preserve phone and social media evidence
Wrongful death compensation isn’t about “pricing a life”—it’s about accountability and justice.
Insurance companies exploit confusion about fair value to lowball victims.
A Fair Settlement Should Include:
• Future medical care documented by certified life-care planners
• Comprehensive wage loss analysis
• Expert evaluations of disability and quality of life
• Evidence-based fault allocation
• Accurate pain and suffering valuation based on jury verdicts
Red Flags of Lowball Offers:
• Ignoring future medical needs
• Algorithm-based “computer offers”
• Pressuring quick acceptance
• Denying clear medical expenses
• Undervaluing pain and suffering
Why Trial Readiness Matters:
When attorneys are genuinely ready for trial—with experts retained, discovery complete, and exhibits prepared—insurers know the threat is real. Trial-ready lawyers increase case value dramatically because insurers prefer to avoid jury exposure and defense costs.
Texas minimum liability coverage ($30,000/$60,000) is rarely enough for catastrophic injuries. Many drivers are uninsured or underinsured, making UM/UIM coverage essential.
PIP/MedPay Coverage:
Pays medical bills and (PIP) lost wages immediately—regardless of fault—and keeps collections off your record.
UM/UIM Coverage:
Protects you when the at-fault driver lacks adequate insurance.
Example: If your damages total $200,000, and the at-fault driver has only $30,000 in coverage, your UIM policy bridges the gap up to your limits.
Avoid These Mistakes:
• Signing broad medical authorizations
• Settling without notifying your insurer
• Failing to understand stacking between vehicles
• Buying minimal coverage instead of adequate protection
Hit-and-Run Claims:
Texas UM coverage applies to hit-and-runs but requires prompt police reporting and proof of physical contact.
Punitive (exemplary) damages are awarded only in gross negligence cases—where the defendant knew the risk and acted with conscious indifference.
Common Scenarios:
• Drunk driving
• Extreme speeding or racing
• Falsified hours-of-service logs
• Fleeing police
• Operating with known mechanical defects
What Doesn’t Qualify:
Ordinary negligence—like failure to yield—does not meet the standard.
Texas Punitive Damage Caps:
Punitive awards are capped at the greater of:
Two times economic damages plus up to $750,000 non-economic damages, or
$200,000 minimum.
Example: $1M economic + $2M non-economic = $2.75M punitive cap.
Family Perspective:
While punitive damages don’t restore what’s lost, they bring accountability and deterrence—a statement that reckless conduct won’t be tolerated on Texas roads.
Greg Baumgartner is the founder of Baumgartner Law Firm, a preeminent-rated Houston personal injury attorney with over 40 years of experience securing maximum compensation for victims of serious injury and wrongful death cases. Among the top 1% of attorneys with dual law degrees and a graduate of Trial Lawyers College, he has won hundreds of millions for clients and co-founded the Houston Northwest Bar Association.
Spotlight Case:
Greg represented a truck driver who lost control and jack-knifed across the roadway, killing two innocent victims. The truck driver was seriously injured. Through thorough investigation, his team proved inadequate maintenance and motor carrier negligence were the cause. Greg recovered multi-million-dollar compensation for the injured driver—substantially more than what other attorneys secured for the wrongful death victims represented in the same case.
