How Do Accident Lawyers Prove Fault in a Car Crash?

If you’ve been in a car accident in Houston, TX, you know how important it is to establish fault. Texas has a modified comparative fault system for deciding personal injury claims, and the more at fault you are, the less you can claim in compensation. Work with accident lawyers who have experience with Texas law and the local courts, as experienced lawyers will be able to prove fault effectively in your case.

How Do Houston, TX Accident Lawyers Prove Fault in a Car Crash?

Understanding the Concept

To prove fault in a car crash, or in any personal injury case for that matter, four elements have to be demonstrated. If you don’t prove all four of these elements, you cannot succeed. The four elements are these:

1. Establishing a duty of care
2. Proving a breach of that duty of care
3. Proving causation
4. Showing damages

Establishing a Duty of Care

“Duty of care” is a legal term that means a person or entity had a legal responsibility to behave in a certain way to protect other others. When it comes to car accidents, duty of care can be simple to prove if you can show that the other driver violated any traffic laws, was driving while impaired, or was driving while distracted. The “duty of care” that every driver owes to all other people on the roads, whether those are other drivers, pedestrians, or cyclists, is to drive safely and to follow all traffic rules.

Proving a Breach of the Duty of Care

The second thing your lawyer will do is seek evidence that shows the driver violated their duty of care. This means the lawyer needs to find evidence the driver violated a traffic rule – such as by running a red light, speeding, or failing to yield – or be able to show that the driver was driving recklessly or was impaired in some way and should not have been driving at all.

Proving Causation

It’s not enough to show that there was a duty of care and that the other driver violated it. The next thing that your lawyer needs to do is to prove definitively that it was that breach of duty of care which caused the accident in which you were injured. In other words, you would not have been injured if not for the behavior of the other driver. This element can be a little confusing for some people because we naturally tend to assume that if the other driver was breaking a traffic law, they are automatically at fault. This is not necessarily the case.

Imagine, for example, that someone is driving drunk and is involved in an accident at a four-way stop. Just because the person was drunk does not necessarily mean they were at fault. If they were properly stopped at the stop sign and waiting their turn, and someone else violated the rules for four-way stops or a cyclist blasted through the stop without paying attention, as cyclists sometimes do, someone else may actually be at fault. The drunk driver could be brought up on criminal charges for a DUI and would likely have their damages reduced by a percentage of fault (see more on that below), but they would not be liable for the personal injury damages of the rest of those involved in the accident if they didn’t cause it, despite breaching the duty of care.

Showing Damages

The final element that must be proven is that you suffered specific damages as a result of the accident which was caused by the breach of duty of care on the part of the other person. You have to be able to show specific damages and exactly what they are. You are allowed to bring a claim for non-economic damages, often known as pain and suffering, but in most cases you will not be allowed to bring a case only for pain and suffering. You can only claim non-economic damages if you have verifiable economic damages to claim for.

To prove all of the above elements, your lawyer will need evidence. They will use pictures, video, witness testimony, and the opinions of accident reconstruction experts to prove precisely what happened. They will use medical bills, evidence of your lost wages, the testimony of friends, other witnesses, and similar evidence to prove your damages and link them to the accident. And a good lawyer will help you to calculate everything that you claim is worth so that nothing is missed.

Complicating Factors to Consider

Texas Comparative Fault Rules

Texas follows a modified comparative fault doctrine for personal injury. What this essentially does is allow anyone who was injured in an accident to claim damages, so long as they were not more than 50% responsible for the accident. However, the final amount of everyone’s damages is reduced by the same percentage as their fault in the accident.

So, for example, if you were hit by someone running a red light, they would certainly be held primarily responsible (i.e. over 50%). However, if you were texting at the time that the accident happened, you may be considered something like 10% responsible for the accident on the theory that, had you been paying attention and not driving distracted, the accident would never have happened in the first place, despite the other driver’s behavior. If your total damages in the accident were $50,000, this would then be reduced by 10%, and you would only receive $45,000 in damages.

As you can see, it makes a great deal of difference how much fault you are assigned in an accident like this. This is why it’s so important to work with a skilled accident lawyers who have experience in Houston, TX courts and with the Texas legal system. A good lawyer will know how to protect you from being saddled with more fault than you actually hold.

Statute of Limitations Issues

The statute of limitations in Texas is two years. This means that for nearly all car accidents, you only have two years to bring your claim. The reason that the statute exists is to encourage everyone to deal with these issues as quickly as possible before evidence can degrade. The farther out you get from the accident, the harder it becomes to prove exactly what happened. This is also a good reason to talk to a lawyer as quickly as possible. You want to give your lawyer a fighting chance to investigate the accident while the evidence and everyone’s memories are fresh, so you can have the best outcome.

Bear in mind, however, that the statute of limitations is much shorter if your accident was caused by the state of Texas or by the city of Houston. This might be because you were hit by a driver working in their official capacity as a state or city employee or because of some failure in city maintenance. If either of these are the case, you must talk to a lawyer as soon as it’s possible to do so to make sure you don’t miss the narrow window for bringing a claim.

If you’ve been in an accident, contact us right away at Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner in Houston for a free consultation on your case.