Texas Spinal Cord & Back Injury Lawyers

Medically and legally they sit at different points on the same scale. Back injuries — herniated discs, fractures, chronic soft-tissue damage — can be serious and permanent without involving the cord itself.

A spinal cord injury means damage to the cord, with partial or complete loss of function below the level of injury. The claims are built the same way; the scale of the future-care analysis is very different.

Almost certainly. It is the standard defense, because disc degeneration is common in adults with no symptoms at all.

The answer is usually your own history: prior imaging if it exists, the absence of prior complaints or treatment, and testimony from your treating physician about the difference between a finding on a film and a symptomatic injury with a clear onset date.

Recommended future surgery is a recoverable element of damages, supported by your surgeon's opinion and a cost projection.

In the meantime, treatment is generally funded through health insurance, PIP or MedPay, or a letter of protection under which the provider is paid from the settlement.

Through a life care plan — a document prepared by a qualified planner that itemizes projected medical treatment, therapy, attendant care, equipment and its replacement cycle, medication, and home or vehicle modification, year by year.

An economist then reduces those future costs to present value. The same exercise is done for lost earning capacity based on your work history and what you can still do.

For an ordinary personal injury claim there is no cap on non-economic damages, which is what makes substantial recoveries possible in severe and catastrophic cases.

Exemplary damages are capped by statute, and medical malpractice claims are governed by their own separate limits. Which regime applies depends on who caused the injury.

Separately from lost wages to date. Lost earning capacity is a distinct element covering the difference between what you could have earned over your working life and what you can earn now.

It is established with vocational evaluation and economic analysis, and in a permanent injury it is frequently the largest single component of the claim.

Nothing up front. We work on a contingency fee, which means our fee is a percentage of what we recover for you and there is no fee at all if we do not recover anything.

The case review is free, and you are not obligated to hire us after it.

In most cases, two years from the date of the injury. Miss that window and the court will almost always dismiss the case regardless of its merits.

The exceptions matter in both directions: the clock is paused for a child until their 18th birthday, while a claim against a city, county, or state agency requires written notice far sooner — six months under state law, and as little as 45 or 90 days under some city charters. Because the deadline depends on who is at fault, it is worth confirming early.

You can still recover. Texas uses proportionate responsibility: as long as you are 50% or less at fault, you collect damages reduced by your share of the blame. At 51% you recover nothing.

That threshold is exactly why adjusters work so hard to pin blame on the injured person early. Fault is argued, not decided at the scene.