Factors Affecting Your Work Injury Claim
Carabin Shaw is an established Texas personal injury firm with a long record for injured workers. Our attorneys guide hurt workers through non-subscriber and work injury claims and press for the full compensation the law allows.
Factors Affecting Your Work Injury Claim
To bring a claim, you first have to prove that you have damages, and in a work injury case those damages come in several forms. Compensatory damages cover both the economic and the non-economic harm your injury caused. Understanding what you can recover, how fault affects it, and how long you have to act are the factors that shape both the value and the viability of your case. Our San Antonio work injury lawyers walk you through each one so you know where your claim stands.
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Types of Damages in a Work Injury Case
Compensatory damages fall into two categories. Economic damages are the measurable financial losses: lost wages, all medical bills and expenses, loss of future income, travel to and from medical treatment, and essentially any cost you can put a number on. Non-economic damages are the less tangible harms, such as interference with family relationships, loss of companionship, pain and suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. Punitive damages are different; they exist to punish especially bad conduct rather than to compensate you. In Texas, punitive damages are capped at the greater of $200,000, or two times your economic damages plus non-economic damages up to $750,000.
Proving Your Damages
Each category of damages has to be proven, not just claimed. We document economic losses with pay records, medical bills, and expert projections of future care and lost earning capacity. Non-economic harm is shown through your medical records, your own testimony, and the accounts of the people who see how the injury has changed your daily life. For punitive damages, we gather the evidence of how reckless or indifferent the employer’s conduct was. The stronger and better documented each category is, the harder it becomes for the other side to minimize what your injury is worth.
Workers’ Comp vs. Non-Subscriber: What You Can Recover
How much of this you can actually recover depends on whether your employer carries workers’ compensation. In a workers’ compensation case, the amount is set by statute and is generally limited to economic benefits, with no recovery for pain and suffering. A non-subscriber case is different. Because it proceeds as a negligence claim against the employer, you can pursue both economic and non-economic compensatory damages, and punitive damages where the employer’s conduct warrants them. That difference often makes a non-subscriber claim worth far more than a comparable comp claim.
Injured workers in the Austin area are governed by the same Texas rules.
Read more here: https://shawcowart.com/austin-tx-workplace-injury-lawyer-in-texas/
Modified Comparative Negligence in Texas
Texas follows the doctrine of modified comparative negligence. As long as you were not more than 50% responsible for your own injury, you can still recover from the other at-fault parties, with your award reduced by your share of the blame. If your responsibility crosses past 50%, you are barred from recovering anything. In a work injury case, an employer will often try to pin a larger share of the fault on you to push you over that line or cut your recovery, which makes the fight over your percentage an important part of the case.
Joint and Several Liability
The related doctrine of joint and several liability can change how your award is actually collected. A defendant who is found less than 50% at fault is responsible only for their own share of the damages. But a defendant found more than 50% at fault can be held liable for the entire award, not just their portion. That means one highly at-fault defendant may have to pay the damages owed by the others, which matters most when some of the responsible parties do not have enough assets or insurance to cover their share.
The Two-Year Statute of Limitations
Texas sets a two-year statute of limitations for most injury cases. The clock runs from the date of your injury to the deadline for filing your lawsuit. There are limited exceptions, such as an injured minor, a victim in a coma or otherwise unable to participate in a case, or a situation where the date of injury cannot be determined. How these exceptions apply varies case by case and depends on the exact circumstances. Because the stakes are so high, this is a question to put to an experienced attorney rather than to guess at on your own.
Why the Deadline Is Not Worth Risking
Do not make the mistake of waiting to file on the assumption that an exception will save your claim. If you miss the deadline, your case will almost certainly be dismissed, no matter how strong it was, and no amount of injury or employer fault will bring it back. The safe course is to speak with an attorney early, confirm the deadline that applies to your situation, and file well before it. Acting promptly protects both your claim and your peace of mind.
Talk to Our San Antonio Work Injury Lawyers
The damages you can recover, the fault assigned to you, and the deadline to file all shape what your work injury claim is worth. Our San Antonio work injury attorneys will sort through these factors and build the strongest version of your case. Call Carabin Shaw at (210) 222-2288 for a free consultation. You pay nothing unless we win your case.
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