Shared Responsibility in Texas Personal Injury Cases

Personal injury cases do not always involve one injured person and one responsible defendant.

A serious accident may result from several mistakes by several different people or companies. A truck driver may make an unsafe maneuver while the trucking company failed to properly maintain the vehicle. A contractor may create a dangerous condition while a property owner fails to correct it. Multiple drivers may each contribute to the same collision.

Texas law has a system for deciding how responsibility is divided when more than one person contributed to an injury.

Texas Uses Proportionate Responsibility

In many Texas personal injury cases, the jury is asked to assign a percentage of responsibility to each person or entity whose conduct contributed to the harm.

Depending on the case, that can include:

• the injured person;

• each defendant in the lawsuit;

• people or companies that have already settled; and

• certain other persons designated as “responsible third parties.”

The percentages are based on each person's contribution to causing the injury and together are used to determine how responsibility for the accident should be allocated. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.003 expressly provides for allocation among claimants, defendants, settling persons, and designated responsible third parties.

An Example: A Commercial Truck Crash

Imagine an 18-wheeler causes a serious collision.

An investigation reveals evidence that:

• the truck driver was speeding;

• the trucking company had failed to properly maintain the truck's brakes; and

• an outside maintenance contractor had negligently inspected those brakes shortly before the crash.

The fact that the driver's conduct contributed to the wreck does not necessarily mean the investigation ends with the driver.

If the evidence supports claims against multiple parties, responsibility may ultimately be divided among them.

For example, a factfinder might determine:

• Truck driver: 40%

• Trucking company: 40%

• Maintenance contractor: 20%

The actual percentages depend entirely on the evidence. The important point is that Texas law allows responsibility for a single injury to be divided among multiple responsible parties.

Does Every Defendant Have to Pay the Entire Judgment?

Usually, no.

As a general rule, a defendant is responsible for the percentage of the damages corresponding to that defendant's percentage of responsibility.

So if a defendant is found 20% responsible, that defendant will generally be responsible for 20% of the recoverable damages.

There is an important exception.

When Joint and Several Liability Can Apply

Under Texas law, a defendant who is found more than 50% responsible may be jointly and severally liable for the claimant's recoverable damages.

In practical terms, that can allow the injured person to collect the recoverable judgment from that defendant even though other parties also contributed to the injury. The defendants may then have separate contribution rights among themselves.

For example, suppose a jury finds:

• Trucking company: 60% responsible

• Maintenance contractor: 30% responsible

• Injured driver: 10% responsible

Because the trucking company was assigned more than 50% of the responsibility, the rules governing joint and several liability may become important.

That distinction can matter significantly when one responsible party has little insurance, few assets, or is otherwise unable to pay its portion of a judgment.

What Is a “Responsible Third Party”?

Texas law also allows a defendant in certain circumstances to ask the court to designate another person or company as a responsible third party.

That person does not necessarily become a defendant in the case. Instead, if the legal requirements are satisfied and sufficient evidence supports it, the person's responsibility may be included when the jury divides fault. Texas law specifically provides that merely designating someone as a responsible third party does not itself make that person liable to the injured claimant.

This can become important because defendants sometimes argue:

“We may bear some responsibility, but someone else caused part of this injury too.”

That is one reason identifying every potentially responsible person or business early in an investigation can matter.

What If the Injured Person Was Also Partially Responsible?

The same proportionate-responsibility system can apply to the injured person.

Under Texas law, a claimant generally cannot recover if the claimant is found more than 50% responsible for the harm.

If the injured person is 50% responsible or less, a recovery may still be possible, although the damages can be reduced based on the percentage of responsibility assigned to that person.

For a more detailed explanation, see our article on Understanding Partial Fault in Texas Personal Injury Cases.

Why Identifying Every Responsible Party Matters

In a serious injury case, determining who caused the accident is often more complicated than identifying the person who was physically present at the scene.

A commercial-truck crash, for example, may require investigating:

• the driver;

• the driver's employer;

• the motor carrier;

• the owner of the tractor or trailer;

• maintenance and repair companies;

• cargo-loading companies; and

• other businesses whose conduct contributed to the collision.

Different parties may possess different evidence, have different insurance coverage, and bear different percentages of legal responsibility.

A careful investigation therefore asks not only what happened, but also:

Who contributed to making it happen?

Injured in an Accident Involving Multiple Responsible Parties?

When several people or companies may have contributed to an injury, determining responsibility can require a detailed investigation of the evidence and the relationships among the parties.

Lyman Law represents people injured in truck accidents, car crashes, premises-liability cases, and other personal injury matters in Houston and the surrounding area.