What if the accident was partly my fault?
- Texas Attorney
- Yale B.A. · University of Houston Law Center J.D.
- Habla español
- Updated October 1, 2026
Texas uses proportionate responsibility: you can still recover as long as you are not more than 50% at fault, with your compensation reduced by your percentage of fault. Insurers routinely exaggerate your share — don't accept their number as final.
Tell me what happened
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Being partly at fault does not end your claim
Texas uses proportionate responsibility, set out in chapter 33 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. You can recover as long as your share of the fault is 50% or less. At 51% or more, you recover nothing. People often call it the 51% bar.
Below that line, your recovery is reduced by your percentage. If your damages are $100,000 and you are found 20% responsible, you recover $80,000. That is a real cost — which is exactly why insurers put so much effort into inflating your share.
How insurers use this against you
Because every percentage point has a dollar value, assigning you fault is the cheapest tool an adjuster has. It does not require denying your injuries or disputing your medical bills. It just requires a story in which you contributed.
Common versions: you were speeding, you could have braked sooner, you were not paying attention, you should not have been in that lane, you did not mitigate your injuries by seeking care fast enough. Some of these are raised on nothing more than the adjuster's reading of a police report — and a police officer's opinion about fault is not binding on anyone.
The number an adjuster assigns you early is a negotiating position, not a finding. It carries no legal weight. Only a jury assigns percentages, and that only happens if the case is tried.
What actually determines the split
Physical evidence tends to beat competing stories. Vehicle damage patterns, crush depth and rest positions, event data recorder downloads, dashcam and nearby surveillance footage, scene measurements and signal timing all constrain what could have happened. Independent witnesses matter. In serious cases, an accident reconstructionist can convert that evidence into a defensible account of the sequence.
That is work that has to happen early, because most of that evidence has a short life.
A note on what did not change
During the 2025 legislative session there was a significant push to change how damages — particularly medical damages — are proven and recovered in Texas injury cases. That bill, Senate Bill 30, did not pass. The rules described here are the current rules.
Authority: Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 33
Your next steps, and ours
Do not explain the crash on tape
Recorded statements capture the sentence that becomes your share of the blame. Their fault percentage is an opening position, not a finding.
Call Jimmy
713-600-6233Partly at fault does not end your claim if your share is 50% or less. The evidence that sets the split has a short life.
We lock down the physical evidence
Vehicle data, dashcam and surveillance footage, scene measurements and witnesses. It constrains the story and disappears fastest.
We challenge their percentage
An adjuster's reading of a police report is not binding. We test their number against the evidence.
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