Practice Areas
Serious Injury.
The cases other firms turn away. Catastrophic, permanent, life-altering. That is the practice.
Before you call
The situations I hear about most, answered honestly: which are cases I take, which are not, and where to go either way. Read it first → Or see where else to go.
Some injuries do not heal. They redraw the rest of a life, and the cases that follow take years, resources, and a lawyer who means to try them.
A catastrophic injury case is not measured only by what has happened. It is measured by what the injury will cost across a lifetime: the surgeries still to come, the care that will be needed, the career that ended, the future that changed shape. Proving that future is its own discipline, built on medicine, life-care planning, and economics, and it is what separates a settlement that runs out from one that lasts.
The two-year clock
Texas generally gives you two years from the date of the injury to file suit. It sounds like plenty of time, and it is not. Evidence fades, records are lost, and the sooner the case is being built by someone who knows what to preserve, the stronger it stays.
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003 sets a two-year limitations period for personal injury and for wrongful death. Some circumstances shorten the practical deadline, so the earliest possible date is the one to work from.
Comparative fault
Texas reduces a recovery by the injured person's share of fault and bars it entirely if that share exceeds fifty percent. This is why the defense works so hard to move blame onto the injured, and why a serious case is built from the start to meet and defeat that effort.
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001 bars recovery when your percentage of responsibility is greater than fifty percent, and reduces it by your share below that line.
When an injury becomes a death
When a person does not survive, Texas law provides two paths. A wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving spouse, children, and parents for their own losses. A survival claim belongs to the estate for what the person themselves endured before death. Together they hold a wrongdoer to account for the whole of what was taken.
Serious injury cases I handle
Traumatic Brain Injury
An injury that can change a person without showing on a scan, and how the case proves what the imaging misses.
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Spinal Cord & Paralysis
Injuries that redraw a life, and the lifetime of care a case has to account for.
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Severe Burn Injuries
Among the most painful injuries there are, with a long and costly road of treatment.
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Wrongful Death
When an injury takes a life, the claims that belong to the family and to the estate.
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Premises Liability
When a property owner's neglect, or a lack of security, turns a place into a hazard.
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Product Liability
When a defective product is the cause, the maker and the sellers can answer for the harm.
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Ranch and Rural Injuries
Ranches, leases, and rural land: the owner, the lessees, the power line, and the court the case belongs in.
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From The Night Docket
The science and the craft of these cases, from my writing desk:
Dispatch: Summer 2028 →
A road that kills ten people on foot in a year is a pattern with an address. This week the state put a date on the fix for Westheimer Road, enhanced crosswalks at 23 intersections by summer 2028. What the federal highway agency says paint and light are worth, what the law asks of every driver on that road tonight, and what a family can and cannot ask of the road itself.
One Word: Consent to Settle →
Your own insurance company gets a say before you release the driver who hurt you, and the clause that gives it that say can cost you your underinsured motorist claim. What the clause says, the Texas Supreme Court case that limits it to an insurer that was actually prejudiced, why the UIM claim is a second case, and the one letter that keeps the fight about your injuries.
Dispatch: The One Door →
When the vehicle that hurt someone belonged to a government, the way into a Texas courtroom is not the usual one: there is one door, the Tort Claims Act, and it opens only for an injury that arises from the use of the vehicle, only on its own clock, only up to a cap, and only against the government itself. What operation or use means, whose employee the driver was, the six-month notice, the caps, and the election that bars the driver.
One Word: Responsible Third Party →
The defendant who says it was not me, it was him, has a procedure for saying so, and it changes the arithmetic of the case. Who can be named, how the designation is made and struck, what the empty chair does to what the defendants pay, the unknown driver named as John Doe, why a phantom car cuts the injured person twice, and the deadline that decides whether the share the jury hands out is a share anyone pays.
One Word: Inquest →
Before any lawsuit, the law has already opened a file on a death, and the family is entitled to what it finds. Which deaths a justice of the peace must investigate, when a medical examiner takes over, who orders the autopsy, what the record holds and who can read it, how a family in Harris County gets the report, and what a death certificate proves in court.
Dispatch: The Roof and the Tank →
A car that rolls once and comes to rest can leave the people inside alive; a car that rolls and then crushes down on them, or burns before they can get out, is a different event. The roof-strength and fuel-system standards, what meeting a federal standard does in a Texas courtroom, whose claim carries the driver’s share, and why the wreck itself is the evidence.
Dispatch: The Blackout →
Sometimes the crash that looks like one driver’s plain mistake is a stroke, a seizure or a faint that took the driver before the car ever left its lane, and Texas law does not ask only what the driver did; it asks whether he could have seen it coming. The loss-of-consciousness defense, the word it turns on, why the record and not the account decides it, and who still pays when no one was at fault.
Dispatch: The Precaution →
Within hours of a rider’s death on a roller coaster, the operator closed the similar rides at its other parks. The public read it as a confession; Texas evidence law reads it as something else. The rule on subsequent remedial measures, the four things a later fix cannot prove, the doors that still let it in, and why the records that decide a ride case are the ones made before.
Dispatch: I Never Saw Them →
A driver who stops after a crash in the dark almost always says the same thing, and Texas law does not ask whether he saw the person; it asks whether he was driving so that he could. The speed-for-conditions duty, the due care owed to a person on foot, the arithmetic of headlights at sixty, how a pedestrian’s own mistake divides a recovery rather than ending it, and why the proof is physical.
Dispatch: The Wide Turn →
A trailer turning right does not stay in its lane; its rear wheels cut inside the path the cab takes, so the space beside a turning truck is about to be filled. Offtracking by the federal measure, the open side of a trailer, the right-turn and signal rules Texas writes, the side-guard gap federal law has not closed, and how the fault is divided.
One Word: Render Aid →
A driver in a crash that hurts someone owes four things before anything else: stop, return, find out whether anyone needs help, and stay. What the statute requires, what leaving costs, why the rule is written for the injured person, and how the civil case goes on when the driver is never found.
Dispatch: The Perimeter →
A crash does not end when the cars stop. A red light run at Hillcroft and Richmond, a police perimeter that other cars then crashed into, a sergeant hit on foot, and a Buick that left its lane on the Grand Parkway and burned at the end of a median. The edge line, the scene as a hazard, the three duties Texas writes for the driver who comes up on it, and who answers.
The Fifth Circuit: Allemond v. Talos →
A welder on a platform off Louisiana lost a fingertip to the moving conductor pipe he was hired to brace, after seven warnings that morning. No unreasonable risk under Louisiana’s risk-utility test, no proof of what a safer method would cost, and an operational-control argument forfeited because it was never made in the district court.
The Body: Ride-Down →
A crash is a stop, and what matters to the body is how much distance the stop is spread over: a belted person slows with the car across feet of crumpling metal, an unbelted person over inches of dashboard, at several times the force. The arithmetic, the belt, the air bag, and the two questions Texas law asks in order.
Dispatch: The Siren →
The federal study of sirens concluded that relying on them to warn drivers in traffic is not justified, and the intersection is where emergency vehicles meet traffic. What Texas asks of the emergency driver, the emergency exception to the Tort Claims Act, the recklessness bar, and the 2022 rule that a department’s own policy is not a law.
The Body: The Quiet Gas →
Carbon monoxide has no color and no smell, and it takes oxygen’s seat in the blood and holds it about two hundred times harder. Why the symptoms look like the flu, why the fingertip monitor reads normal, the injury that shows up weeks later, what the storms taught Texas about generators, and what the law asks.
One Word: Invitee →
The shopper, the hotel guest, the patient, the fan: anyone a business asks in is an invitee, and Texas owes that person its widest premises promise, to make the place safe or warn of what it knew or should have found. The four things an invitee has to prove, and why the fight is almost always over what the owner knew.
Dispatch: The Hood Line →
A low car strikes an adult in the legs and the body wraps onto the hood; a tall front meets a child above the center of balance and throws the child forward and down. Hoods above forty inches were about forty-five percent more likely to kill, and Texas asks a driver for due care to anyone on foot and proper precaution on seeing a child.
One Word: Eggshell →
The person who hurt you takes you as he finds you. Why a pre-existing condition is not a defense in Texas, what aggravation means, why the word degenerative on an MRI proves almost nothing, and how to build the before.
Dispatch: The Pole →
A pole slips past the frame rails built to fold, so a crash people picture as minor can be fatal. The claim survives against a dead driver’s estate, fault is divided among everyone involved, and your own uninsured and underinsured coverage stands behind the gap.
Dispatch: Airtime →
A ride restraint set with a gap turns the weightless instant into a spike down the spine, and a San Antonio study found disk injuries at only 4.5 to 5 g. Texas requires every ride to be insured and inspected, and a restraint known to be wrong can be a choice a jury may punish.
Dispatch: Smoke →
Smoke inhalation looks minor and is often the most dangerous injury in a fire: two poisons that read normal on the monitor and an airway that swells over the first day. What a hotel owes a paying guest, and why the case turns on when they knew.
Dispatch: The Swerve →
An animal on a dark road, half a second to react, and a rollover that is almost always tripped by the edge the tire caught. Texas counts about 7,585 animal crashes a year, and the law judges the reaction as closely as the hazard.
The Body: The Egg Carton →
How a school bus protects children without belts, where compartmentalization stops in a side impact and a rollover, what Texas now requires on every bus, and who answers when a car crosses the line into one.
The Body: Low-Side, High-Side →
A motorcycle that loses its grip slides out on its low side or throws the rider over the high side. The traction budget, what each fall breaks, why the rider could not steer out of it, and what the road keeps as evidence.
The Fifth Circuit: Phillips v. Ethicon →
A Texas product-death case ended on a letter never sent: an implied-warranty claim needs presuit notice to the seller, a one-sentence request to amend is not enough, and a dismissal with prejudice follows the family into the next suit.
One Word: Single-Vehicle →
One vehicle on the scene does not mean nobody at fault. The road, the debris, the vehicle itself, the car that never touched you, and the passengers: where the other defendant is, and the Texas rules for each.
The Body: Seven Times the Energy →
Every car is built for a crash in the thirties, and a car at 100 carries seven to eight times that energy. The same crash at 40, 50 and 56 mph, stopping distance, and where speed becomes gross negligence.
Dispatch: The Left Turn →
In 45 percent of fatal two-vehicle motorcycle crashes in 2024, the other vehicle was turning left. Why a driver can look straight at a motorcycle and still not see it in time, the Texas yield rule, and why the helmet goes to injury, not fault.
Dispatch: Broadside →
Side impacts were 22 percent of passenger vehicle occupant deaths in 2024. Why the struck side gets inches instead of feet, what the federal side standard tests, and the Texas right-of-way presumption.
Dispatch: High Water →
A foot of water floats many vehicles. Going around a barricade weighs against the driver but does not end the case, and a missing or broken warning the government was told about can put it in the case.
Dispatch: Rolled →
Rollovers were 28 percent of the people killed riding in passenger vehicles in 2023. Why a rollover puts the vehicle on trial: stability, the roof, and whether it kept the people inside.
Dispatch: Stranded →
Two people on foot were killed on Houston freeways the same Saturday night. A driver’s duty to a person on foot does not end where the sidewalk does, and what to do if your car dies on a freeway.
Dispatch: Thrown →
Of the vehicle occupants totally ejected in fatal crashes nationally in 2023, 82 percent were killed. The belt’s first job is keeping you inside; the car has that job too.
Dispatch: The Phone →
Texas tied distracted driving to 86,384 crashes and 299 deaths in 2025. The danger is the eyes, not the phone, and the phone that caused the crash is the record that proves it, if someone moves to preserve it.
Dispatch: The Belt →
Texas counted 965 people killed unbuckled in 2025. Why the belt keeps the body inside the survival space, and why since Nabors v. Romero a jury can score the missing belt against the recovery.
Dispatch: On Foot →
The state counted 772 people killed on foot in 2024. Why the ground is so often the fatal impact, and why the case turns on who owed the yield.
Fog →
Mild traumatic brain injury, and why a clean scan is not the same as no injury.
The Clot →
How immobilization after a serious injury creates its own deadly risk.
The Body at 84 →
The eggshell-plaintiff rule, and why a defendant takes the victim as they find them.
Mitigation →
The duty to limit harm, and how the defense turns it against the injured.
Common Questions
How long do I have to file a personal injury case in Texas?
Generally two years from the date of injury under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003, and the same two-year period applies to wrongful death. Some situations shorten it, so it is best to act well before the deadline.
Can I recover if I was partly at fault?
Often yes. Texas reduces recovery by your share of fault and bars it only if you are found more than fifty percent responsible. Partial fault is not the end of a claim, though the defense will try to exaggerate it.
Who can bring a wrongful death claim in Texas?
The surviving spouse, children, and parents can bring a wrongful death claim for their own losses. The estate can separately bring a survival claim for what the person endured before death. The two together address the full harm.
Tell me what happened.
Free consultation. No fees unless we win. Speak with me directly, not a screener.
Contact Orlando Rodriguez