Injury types in a Texas claim, explained

The medical record, made at the time

What you told a provider, when, and what they found. Contemporaneous records carry weight precisely because they were made before anyone was thinking about a claim. This is why the gap between the incident and the first medical visit matters so much: it is the single most common thing an adjuster points at.

Objective findings, where they exist

Imaging, nerve conduction studies, range-of-motion measurements, surgical findings. Some injuries produce these readily and some do not, which is not the same as some injuries being real and others not. A soft tissue injury can be genuinely disabling and produce a completely normal X-ray.

Causation, connecting the harm to the event

A medical record that says you have a herniated disc proves you have a herniated disc. It does not, on its own, prove the crash caused it. Causation is usually the contested question in any injury where a degenerative explanation is available, which is most of them past a certain age.

The effect on your life, documented

What you cannot do now that you could do before: work, lift, sleep, drive, care for your own children. Texas allows recovery for non-economic harm, and Chapter 41 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code governs how damages are categorised and awarded. This element is proved by ordinary evidence, not medical evidence, and it is the one most often under-documented.

What is a whiplash injury, and why is it disputed?

Whiplash describes a mechanism rather than a single diagnosis: the head is thrown rapidly forward and back, straining the muscles, ligaments and other soft tissue of the neck beyond their normal range. Symptoms commonly appear hours or a day later rather than at the scene, which is medically ordinary and is nonetheless used to argue that nothing happened in the collision. It is disputed because it rarely appears on an X-ray, not because it is rarely real.

People ask this as "my neck hurts after a car accident but the X-ray was normal".

What is a neck injury beyond whiplash?

The cervical spine has seven vertebrae separated by discs, with the spinal cord running through them. Injuries range from muscular strain through disc bulges and herniations to fracture. A herniated cervical disc can press on a nerve root and produce pain, numbness or weakness travelling down an arm — symptoms that are felt away from the actual injury, which is one reason they get misattributed.

Also called cervical strain, cervical disc injury, pinched nerve in the neck.

What is a back injury in a claim context?

Most commonly the lumbar spine, the lower five vertebrae that carry the body's load. The same range applies: strain, disc bulge, herniation, fracture. Radiating pain down a leg indicates nerve root involvement. Back injuries are the most likely of any injury to attract a pre-existing condition argument, because degenerative change in the lumbar spine is nearly universal in adults and will be visible on the imaging.

Also called lumbar strain, herniated disc, sciatica.

What is a soft tissue injury?

Damage to muscle, tendon, ligament or other connective tissue rather than to bone. Sprains, strains and tears. The category exists in insurance vocabulary mainly as a way of signalling "minor", which is not what it means medically: a torn ligament can require surgery and produce permanent limitation. What is true is that it is harder to demonstrate objectively, which makes documentation and consistent treatment carry more of the weight.

People ask this as "is a soft tissue injury serious".

What is a concussion, and can it be serious if scans are normal?

A concussion is a brain injury caused by a blow, jolt or violent movement of the head that disrupts normal brain function. Loss of consciousness is not required and most concussions do not involve it. A CT scan performed in an emergency department is looking for bleeding and skull fracture; a normal CT rules those out and says nothing about whether a concussion occurred. Symptoms including headache, difficulty concentrating, memory problems, light sensitivity, irritability and sleep disturbance can persist well beyond the event.

People ask this as "the CT was normal so do I have a brain injury".

Why are concussions often missed at the scene?

Three reasons that recur. The person is focused on a visible injury and does not mention feeling foggy. Symptoms develop or worsen over the following days. And the people best placed to notice the change — family, coworkers — are not the ones being asked. Documentation of the change by people who knew the person before is often better evidence than any single test.

What is a coma, and what does it mean for a claim?

A prolonged state of unconsciousness from which a person cannot be roused. In a claim it changes the timeline more than anything else: nobody can assess the long-term extent of harm while the person is still in it, and the family is making decisions about care and finances with no information. Where someone does not survive, the claim moves to a different statute entirely — Chapter 71 governs wrongful death and survival actions in Texas.

What is paralysis and what determines its extent?

Loss of muscle function, and usually sensation, resulting from damage to the spinal cord or nerves. The level of the injury on the spinal cord determines what is affected: damage higher up affects more of the body. Injuries are described as complete or incomplete depending on whether any signal crosses the damaged level, and that distinction drives the entire prognosis. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke publishes an accessible overview of spinal cord injury and its effects.

Also called paraplegia, quadriplegia, tetraplegia.

What does an amputation claim involve?

Loss of a limb or extremity, either in the incident itself or surgically afterwards when the limb cannot be saved. The distinctive features of these claims are prosthetics, which are replaced repeatedly across a lifetime rather than bought once, and the change to how a person earns a living. The harm is permanent and visible, so the dispute is rarely about whether it happened.

What makes a burn injury different?

Burns are classified by depth. Superficial burns affect the outer skin layer; deeper burns reach the tissue beneath and destroy structures that do not regenerate. The features that set burn claims apart are treatment duration, the frequency of repeat surgery including grafting and reconstruction, infection risk during recovery, and permanent scarring. Scarring is compensable harm in Texas in its own right, separately from the medical cost of treating it.

Two years, in most cases

Texas generally allows two years from the day the cause of action accrues to file a personal injury suit under Chapter 16 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Claims against governmental units carry much shorter notice requirements. Confirm the date for your own facts rather than relying on a web page.

Your percentage of fault, and the 51 percent bar

Under Chapter 33, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of responsibility, and if that percentage is greater than 50 you recover nothing. This is why an insurer works to attach a share of fault to you, and why the documentation described above is not optional.

Reporting, where a vehicle was involved

Chapter 550 of the Transportation Code sets the duties and reporting obligations after a crash. A police report is not required for a claim to exist, but its absence removes a piece of contemporaneous evidence that is difficult to replace later.