Car Accident Lawyer in San Antonio: How Fault Is Proved Under Texas Law

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Almost every disputed car accident claim in Texas comes down to one question: who caused the wreck, and by how much. The answer is not just yes or no. Texas law splits the responsibility between everyone who caused a collision in percentages, and those percentages decide whether you recover anything and how much. This page is LAWBOSS’s explanation of how fault works in a San Antonio car accident case, what evidence moves it and how a claim runs from the first letter to a lawsuit.

Proportionate responsibility in Texas

Chapter 33 is called proportionate responsibility. Section 33.003 tells the jury to give a percentage of responsibility, in whole numbers, to each person who caused or contributed to the harm: each claimant, each defendant, each person who has already settled, and each responsible third party. Three sections then turn those percentages into money.

Section	What it does	What it means for you
33.001	A claimant may not recover if his percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent	At 50 percent you still recover. At 51 percent you recover nothing
33.012(a)	The damages are reduced by a percentage equal to the claimant’s own share	If you are found 20 percent responsible, you receive 80 percent of your damages
33.013(b)(1)	A defendant more than 50 percent responsible is jointly and severally liable	That defendant can be made to pay all the recoverable damages, which matters when another driver has no insurance
33.004	A defendant may ask the court, at least 60 days before trial, to designate a responsible third party	The other side can point at someone else, such as a third driver or a road contractor, to lower its own share

Because the cut-off sits at 50 percent, an insurer gains a great deal from moving even ten points of blame onto you. A claim that is 60 to 40 in your favor is worth far more than one argued at 45 to 55. Much of a car accident lawyer’s work goes into those percentages.

How fault is argued in common San Antonio wrecks

Fault starts from the rules of the road in Chapter 545 of the Transportation Code. A driver who breaks one of them and causes a collision has a hard time arguing that someone else was to blame.

Rear-end collisions

Section 545.062 requires a driver following another vehicle to keep an assured clear distance, so that, considering the speed, the traffic and the road, the driver can stop safely without hitting the car ahead. In stop-and-go traffic on Loop 410 or I-10 near the Medical Center, a rear-end wreck usually puts most or all of the fault on the following driver. Insurers still look for something to argue: brake lights that did not work, a sudden lane change in front of the following car, or a stop for no reason. Photographs of your rear lights and the damage pattern answer most of those arguments.

Left turns and T-bone wrecks

Section 545.152 requires a driver turning left at an intersection, or into an alley, driveway or private road, to yield to oncoming traffic that is in the intersection or close enough to be an immediate hazard. On roads with many driveways and turn lanes, such as Bandera Road, Culebra Road or Fredericksburg Road, left-turn wrecks are common, and fault is often shared. The turning driver usually carries the larger share, but an oncoming driver who was speeding, ran a red light or was looking at a phone can carry part of it.

Lane changes and merges

Freeway merges onto I-35, US 281 and Loop 1604 produce sideswipes where each driver says the other moved over. Where the damage sits on each car, the angle of the scrape and any dashcam or traffic camera video usually settle it. Work zones add shifted lanes and narrowed shoulders: TxDOT recorded 3,847 work zone crashes in Bexar County in 2025.

Phones and distraction

Section 545.4251 makes it an offense to read, write or send an electronic message on a hand-held phone while driving unless the vehicle is stopped. TxDOT counted 17,023 crashes involving a distracted driver in Bexar County in 2025. When there is reason to think the other driver was on a phone, the phone records become evidence, and they have to be requested through the case.

The evidence that decides fault

The CR-3 crash report is where an insurer starts, but it is not the last word. Officers often arrive after the cars have moved, and the report records what the drivers told them and what the officer could see. We look beyond it.

• Photographs and the damage pattern. Where each car was hit and how hard tells a reconstructionist the angle and speed of the impact.
• Witnesses. Names and phone numbers taken at the scene, and people found later at nearby businesses.
• Video. Traffic cameras, dashcams, doorbell cameras and business security cameras. Many systems record over themselves within days or weeks, so a request has to go out fast.
• The vehicles’ own data. Many cars carry an event data recorder that stores speed, braking and seatbelt use for the seconds before a crash. The car has to be preserved before it is repaired or sold for salvage.
• Phone records, when distraction is in question.
• 911 calls and dispatch logs, which fix the time of the wreck and often hold what a witness said in the first minutes.

Evidence disappears. Cars are crushed, video is recorded over and witnesses move away. One of the first things we do is send letters asking the other driver, the insurers and anyone holding video to keep what they have.

How your own conduct is argued against you

Proportionate responsibility works in both directions. An insurer will look at your speed, your lane, whether you had a seatbelt on and what you said at the scene. Texas law requires anyone 15 or older in a passenger vehicle seat that has a seatbelt to wear it (Transportation Code 545.413), and an insurer may argue that not wearing one made the injuries worse. Saying sorry at the scene is ordinary courtesy, but it is often written into a report as an admission. These points are why we ask you not to give the other insurer a recorded statement: it is where most of this material comes from.

How a car accident claim runs

Most claims settle without a trial. Each stage below exists for a reason, and you are told what is happening at each one.

1. Free case review. You tell us what happened. We tell you whether you have a claim and how our fee works.
2. Investigation. We order the CR-3, send preservation letters, collect photographs and video, and identify every insurance policy that may apply.
3. Treatment. You get the care your doctors recommend. We gather the records and bills as you go and handle PIP and health insurance questions.
4. The demand. When your doctors can say what the injury will need in the future, we send the insurer a demand package: the liability case, the medical records, the bills, the lost pay and what the injury has done to your daily life.
5. Negotiation. The adjuster answers, often with a low first offer. We answer with evidence. You decide whether to accept any offer.
6. Lawsuit, if needed. If the claim does not settle, we file suit before the two-year deadline in Civil Practice and Remedies Code 16.003. Under the general venue rule in section 15.002, suit is usually filed in the county where the wreck happened, which for most of our cases is Bexar County.
7. Discovery, mediation and trial. Both sides exchange documents and take depositions, and most cases go to mediation. Many settle there; the rest are tried.

What can be recovered

Texas law divides damages into economic and noneconomic damages, as defined in Chapter 41 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Economic damages are the money losses: medical bills, lost wages and lost earning capacity, the repair or value of the car, and future medical care. Recovery of medical expenses is limited to the amount actually paid or incurred (41.0105), not the full amount on a hospital’s first bill. Noneconomic damages cover physical pain, mental anguish, physical impairment, disfigurement and the loss of enjoyment of life.

Exemplary damages, sometimes called punitive damages, are available only on clear and convincing evidence of fraud, malice or gross negligence (41.003), and a jury must agree on them unanimously. A drunk driver is the usual example. They are capped under section 41.008, but the cap does not apply to conduct that is a felony of intoxication assault or intoxication manslaughter.

We do not quote what a case is worth on the first call. The value of a claim depends on the injuries, the treatment, the insurance available and the evidence of fault, and none of that is known on the first day. What we can do is explain each part of the claim as it develops.

Why our attorneys look at fault the way insurers do

LAWBOSS was founded by Michael Uvalle, who worked for several of the largest insurance companies in Texas before he became a lawyer. Several of our attorneys also came from adjusting claims or defending insurers. When an adjuster argues that you share the blame, we know where that argument usually comes from and what evidence answers it.

Our fee is a contingency fee: you pay no attorney’s fee unless we recover money for you. We advance the case expenses, and if there is no recovery you owe no fee and no case expenses. If there is a recovery, the fee and the expenses are paid from it as your written fee agreement sets out before we start.

For what to do in the first days after a wreck, see our car wreck lawyer San Antonio guide. For the different kinds of wrecks and whose insurance answers for each, see our auto accident lawyer San Antonio page. The firm’s main website is lawboss.com.

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