The car accident injury lawyers in Houston at Lassiter Law Firm work under a two-year filing deadline set by Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003. Harris County recorded 115,173 crashes in 2024. You can still recover money if you shared blame, as long as your share of fault stays at 50% or below.
That is the short version. The rest of this page explains what those rules mean when you are the one with a totaled car and a hospital bill you cannot pay. If you want to talk it through with a lawyer today, call Lassiter Law Firm at (713) 538-2593. The office answers 24 hours a day.
How Long Do You Have to File a Houston Car Accident Claim
Texas gives you two years from the day the crash happened. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003 sets that deadline for personal injury suits, and courts enforce it strictly. Miss it, and your case gets dismissed no matter how clearly the other driver caused the wreck. Adjusters track that date more carefully than most injured people do, and an adjuster who keeps asking for one more medical record has no duty to remind you that the clock is running.
When someone dies in a crash, the same statute gives the family two years, but subsection (b) starts the clock on the date of death rather than the date of the collision. Those two dates are often the same. When a person survives for weeks in an intensive care unit and then dies, they are not, and that difference decides whether a claim is still alive.
Why the Two-Year Deadline Runs Out Faster Than It Sounds
Two years sounds generous until you count what has to happen inside it. Vehicles get repaired or sold for scrap, dashcam footage gets overwritten, and the gas stations and warehouses whose cameras caught the intersection recycle their video in 30 days or less. Harris County adds pressure of its own. Under Rule 3.6 of the Rules of the Civil Trial Division, a case on file for more than 18 months without a trial setting becomes eligible for the dismissal docket, so momentum matters after the lawsuit is filed, too.
Where Car Accident Injury Lawyers in Houston File Your Lawsuit
Most Houston injury suits land at the Harris County Civil Courthouse at 201 Caroline Street, where 24 civil district courts hear these cases. The Harris County District Clerk, Marilyn Burgess, runs civil intake on the first floor of that building. Claims worth $250,000 or less can also go to one of the five Harris County Civil Courts at Law on the fifth floor. District courts carry no ceiling, which is where catastrophic injury and wrongful death claims belong.
Houston does not sit inside a single county. City limits reach into Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery, and Waller counties, so the courthouse that hears your case depends on where the crash happened and where the defendant lives. A wreck near the Waller County line and a wreck on the Gulf Freeway can produce two different courthouses, two different judges, and two different dockets. The Houston car accident attorneys at Lassiter Law Firm settle that venue question before filing rather than after.
How Harris County Assigns Your Case to a Judge
Rule 3.1 of the county’s civil trial division rules assigns every new filing randomly to one of the 24 courts, and the case stays with that court for all purposes unless it gets transferred. Neither side picks the judge. Harris County also stretches the certificate of conference requirement further than the statewide rules do, reaching pleas and special exceptions, which forces the lawyers to confer before filing most motions. The practical effect is that a case moves at the pace of the court it drew, and local experience with those 24 dockets is worth more than it sounds.
How to Get Your Houston Police Crash Report After a Wreck
Texas puts the reporting duty on the drivers. Under Transportation Code Section 550.026, you must notify police immediately if anyone is injured or killed, or if a vehicle cannot be driven away normally and safely. Many Houston pages still tell readers the trigger is $1,000 in property damage. That stopped being accurate on September 1, 2023. The $1,000 figure now sits in Sections 550.041 and 550.062, which control when an officer investigates and when the officer must file a written report, not when you have to call.
The report itself is the Texas Peace Officer’s Crash Report, form CR-3. Houston Police Department patrol officers write most of them, while the department’s Vehicular Crimes Division takes over fatal and catastrophic crashes and runs the hit-and-run unit. HPD’s Records Division at 1200 Travis Street releases the finished report roughly 5 to 8 days after the wreck and asks for two of three identifiers, meaning the date, the location, or a driver’s name. A full copy costs $6 and requires the H.B. 2633 form in person or by mail. You can also buy it through TxDOT’s Crash Records Information System for $6, or $8 for a certified copy that holds up in a court filing.
Crash reports are not open records in Texas the way police blotters are in some states. Section 550.065 limits full copies to people directly concerned in the collision, which covers anyone involved, their attorney, the vehicle owner, the insurers, and family members who could sue over a death. Everyone else gets a redacted version.
What Happens If You Were Partly at Fault for a Texas Car Accident
Sharing blame does not end your claim. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001 bars recovery only when your percentage of responsibility is greater than 50%. At exactly 50%, you still recover. Section 33.012(a) then reduces your damages by whatever percentage the jury puts on you.
Run it with real numbers. Say a jury values your case at $200,000 and finds you 30% responsible for entering an intersection on a stale yellow light. You collect $140,000. Move that same finding to 51%, and you collect nothing at all. The distance between 50% and 51% is worth the entire case, which explains why adjusters push fault onto injured drivers so hard during recorded statements taken in the first week.
Texas juries spread that percentage across every responsible party, not just you and the other driver. A poorly marked construction zone, a trucking company that skipped a brake inspection, or a bar that kept serving a visibly drunk customer can each absorb a share, and every point assigned elsewhere is a point that cannot be assigned to you.
What a Houston Car Accident Injury Claim Can Recover
Texas places no cap on compensatory damages in an ordinary car accident case. You can recover medical expenses, lost wages, lost earning capacity, property damage, physical pain, mental anguish, disfigurement, and physical impairment with no statutory ceiling. The $250,000 figure people repeat comes from Chapter 74, which is titled Medical Liability and reaches only health care liability claims. It has nothing to do with a driver who ran a red light on Westheimer.
Two real limits do apply. Section 41.0105 restricts medical expense recovery to the amount actually paid or incurred rather than the amount originally billed, which matters because hospital charge sheets bear little relation to what anyone actually pays. Exemplary damages, the punishment category reserved for conduct well beyond ordinary carelessness, are capped by Section 41.008(b) at the greater of $200,000 or twice your economic damages plus up to $750,000 in noneconomic damages.
Why Texas Damages Law Did Not Change in 2025
Several Texas firms published pages last year announcing that the state rewrote its medical damages rules. It did not. Senate Bill 30 of the 89th Legislature would have changed how juries see medical expense evidence, and it cleared the Senate and then the House in a different form. The official bill history shows conferees appointed on May 30, 2025, and no action after that. The bill died in conference when the regular session ended. Chapters 18, 33, and 41 carry no amendments from that session, and Section 41.0105 still reads exactly as it did in 2003. Anyone valuing your claim under a 2025 rule change is working from a law that never took effect, and the next regular session does not convene until January 2027.
Who Pays Your Medical Bills While a Houston Car Accident Case Is Open
The at-fault driver’s insurer pays nothing until the case is resolved. That leaves you covering treatment in the meantime, and it is the part of an injury claim that wears people down fastest. Personal injury protection is the first place to look. Insurance Code Section 1952.152 requires every Texas auto insurer to include PIP unless the named insured rejected it in writing, so pull the policy instead of trusting memory.
One correction worth knowing. Section 1952.153 caps the required offer at $2,500 per person. That is a maximum the insurer has to put on the table, not a legal minimum, and many Texas drivers carry more without realizing it. PIP pays regardless of who caused the crash and covers medical bills, lost income, and the cost of replacing services you can no longer perform for expenses incurred within three years of the collision.
How a Texas Hospital Lien Can Take Half of Your Settlement
If an ambulance took you to Ben Taub Hospital at 1504 Taub Loop or Memorial Hermann at 6411 Fannin Street, the two adult Level I trauma centers on the Texas trauma facilities list for Houston, that hospital can attach a lien to your claim. Property Code Section 55.002 requires admission within 72 hours of the crash for the lien to attach at all. Section 55.004(b) then limits it to the lesser of three amounts: charges from the first 100 days of hospitalization, 50% of everything you recover, or the fact finder’s award for hospital charges reduced by a pro rata share of your attorney’s fees and expenses. That third prong disappears from most summaries, and it is the one that protects your net recovery.
What Makes a Texas Hospital Lien Unenforceable
Section 55.005 only gives the hospital a lien if it perfects one. The hospital must give you written notice and file written notice of the lien with the county clerk of the county where it provided the services, and the filing has to happen before any settlement money gets paid out. A hospital that treats you in Harris County and never files with the Harris County Clerk holds nothing enforceable. Checking that filing takes a phone call and a records search, and it regularly puts thousands of dollars back in a client’s pocket at the end of a case.
What to Do When the Other Driver Has Too Little Insurance in Texas
Texas requires very little coverage. Transportation Code Section 601.072 has set the minimum at 30/60/25 since January 1, 2011, meaning $30,000 for one person’s injuries, $60,000 for everyone hurt in a single crash, and $25,000 for property damage. One night at a Level I trauma center can burn through $30,000 before anyone mentions surgery, which is why a state minimum policy so often leaves an injured driver holding the rest.
Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage fills that gap, and you may already own it without knowing. Insurance Code Section 1952.101 requires insurers to include UM and UIM coverage unless the named insured rejects it in writing. A verbal rejection does not count, and neither does a checkbox that nobody can produce years later. Pulling the underwriting file to find out whether a signed rejection actually exists is one of the first moves worth making when the at-fault driver carries state minimums.
Where Serious Crashes Happen Most Often in Harris County
TxDOT counted 115,173 reported crashes in Harris County in 2024, the most recent complete year of county data. Those crashes included 546 fatal collisions, 579 deaths, and 2,688 suspected serious injuries. Harris County alone accounted for roughly 21% of every reported crash in Texas that year and about 14% of the state’s traffic deaths. The county report notes the figures reflect CR-3 reports processed through April 9, 2025, so later filings will nudge them upward.
The roads carrying that volume are the ones any Houston driver would name. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s 2025 congestion ranking put the West Loop, Interstate 610 between the Katy Freeway and the Southwest Freeway, at number one in Texas, and 7 of the state’s 10 most congested segments sit in Harris County. That list measures delay rather than collisions, so read it as a map of where traffic stacks up, not a ranking of danger.
For crash concentration, the city’s own Vision Zero Action Plan found that nearly 60% of traffic deaths and serious injuries happen on just 6% of Houston streets, naming Westheimer Road, South Gessner Road, Scott Street, Fondren Road, and Tidwell Road among them. That analysis runs from 2014 through 2018, so the numbers are dated, but the surface street pattern it describes has not moved much.
What to Look for in a Houston Car Accident Attorney
Board certification is the clearest credential available. The Texas Board of Legal Specialization certifies only a small share of Texas lawyers in Personal Injury Trial Law, and earning it requires substantial trial experience plus a written examination. James Lassiter holds that certification. For over 20 years, the Houston personal injury attorneys at Lassiter Law have fought tirelessly for injured Texans, and the firm has won over $300 million for its clients.
Settle the fee question before you sign anything. Lassiter Law Firm works on a contingency fee, which means you pay nothing upfront and the firm gets paid only if it recovers money for you. Ask who will actually handle your file day to day, whether the firm tries cases or refers them out, and how fast they will send a preservation letter to the business whose camera recorded the crash.
Ask about your specific wreck too. A rear-end collision on the North Freeway, a left turn crash at a surface intersection, and a chain-reaction pileup in morning fog on the Gulf Freeway each turn on different evidence. A lawyer who can tell you on the first call what they would go after is telling you something worth hearing.
Frequently Asked Questions About Houston Car Accident Claims
These come up in almost every first phone call after a Houston crash. The answers below are general. What is right for your case depends on the crash report, your medical records, and the coverage sitting on both policies.
Do I Need a Lawyer for a Minor Car Accident in Houston?
Not always. When nobody is hurt and the property damage is small, you can often handle it with the insurers directly. The calculation changes the moment there is an injury, a disputed fault call, or a driver carrying state minimum limits, because the adjuster’s job is to close your file for as little as the file will take.
Can I Still Recover If I Did Not Go to the Hospital Right Away?
Yes, though the delay hands the insurer an argument. Adrenaline masks soft tissue and head injuries for a day or longer, and Texas courts understand that. Get evaluated as soon as symptoms show up and tell the provider the injury came from a crash, so the medical record connects the two events from the start.
How Long Does a Houston Car Accident Settlement Take?
A straightforward claim with clear liability and completed treatment often resolves in three to six months. A case involving surgery, contested fault, or a lawsuit filed in Harris County District Court commonly runs a year or more. No case can be valued accurately until your doctors know what your long-term recovery looks like, and settling before that point almost always costs money.
What If the Driver Who Hit Me Was Working at the Time?
Their employer may share liability, and a commercial policy usually carries far higher limits than a personal auto policy. This applies to delivery drivers, service technicians, and anyone running an errand for a business. Identify it early, because commercial defendants preserve vehicle data and driver records on their own schedules.
Does Filing a Texas Car Accident Claim Raise My Own Insurance Rate?
Filing against the at-fault driver’s policy does not touch your rate. Using your own PIP or uninsured motorist coverage draws on a benefit you already paid for, and Texas insurers generally cannot surcharge you for a crash you did not cause. Read your policy or ask your agent before you decide to skip coverage you already own.
Talk to the Car Accident Injury Lawyers in Houston, Texas, at Lassiter Law Firm
A car wreck leaves you negotiating with an insurance adjuster while you are still finding out how badly you are hurt. You do not have to run that alone. The car accident injury lawyers in Houston, Texas, at Lassiter Law Firm handle the crash report, the hospital liens, the venue question, and the adjuster, so you can put your attention on getting treated and getting better.
Call Lassiter Law Firm at (713) 538-2593. The office at 3200 Southwest Freeway, Suite 3250, answers 24 hours a day; consultations are free, and the firm works on a contingency fee, so you owe nothing unless it recovers money for you. The firm also serves Spanish-speaking clients.
Two years sounds like plenty of time, and it disappears quickly, especially when video and vehicle evidence start vanishing within weeks of the crash. Bring what you already have, including scene photos, your crash report number, and the name of every doctor who has treated you. If calling is not convenient right now, send the details through the contact page, and someone from the firm will get back to you.