Most injury cases are about getting someone back to where they were. Catastrophic cases are not. When an injury takes a limb, burns through skin and muscle, severs a spinal cord or damages a brain, nobody goes back to where they were. The case stops being about medical bills and becomes about the next forty years.
If you are reading this in the first weeks after it happened, you are probably being asked to make decisions before you know what the injury is going to mean. That is the wrong order, and it is not your fault that it is happening that way. This article is written to put the order back.
What makes an injury catastrophic
There is no single statutory definition in Texas. In practice an injury is treated as catastrophic when it is permanent, when it requires care that continues for life, and when it takes away some or all of a person’s ability to earn a living. The injuries that meet that description are consistent:
- Severe burns, particularly third and fourth degree burns requiring grafting, repeated reconstruction and years of scar management.
- Amputation, whether the limb is lost at the scene or surgically after an attempt to save it fails, along with a lifetime of prosthetics and replacements.
- Spinal cord injury and paralysis, where the cost is measured in home modification, attendant care and equipment as much as in surgery.
- Traumatic brain injury, which can change personality, memory and judgment while leaving a person able to walk into a room and appear fine.
- Injuries requiring multiple surgeries, internal fixation, fusion, or hardware that will need revision later in life.
- Loss of sight or hearing, and crush injuries that leave chronic pain and limited use of a hand, arm or leg.
Brain injury is the category most often underestimated. The CDC reports roughly 214,110 traumatic brain injury related hospitalizations in 2020 and 68,663 related deaths in 2023. A person with a moderate brain injury often looks recovered months before they are able to hold a job again.
The worker who does not make a claim
A large share of catastrophic injuries do not happen in a car. They happen on a jobsite, in a plant, on a roof, around a machine, and they happen to someone working a job where speaking up has a cost.
Three things tend to keep that person from calling anyone. He assumes workers’ compensation is the only thing available. He assumes that because he was told to do the thing that hurt him, nothing can be done. And he is afraid that making a claim will cost him the job, or worse.
The first assumption is often wrong in a way that matters enormously. Texas does not require private employers to carry workers’ compensation, and whether this employer subscribes changes the entire path of the claim. It is a fact that can be checked rather than guessed. Separately, a workers’ compensation claim does not necessarily end the matter. A third party may also be responsible: the manufacturer of the equipment, a general contractor, another subcontractor on the same site, a property owner. Those claims exist alongside comp and are frequently where the real recovery is.
On the third fear, the honest answer is that it is a real fear and it deserves a real conversation rather than a slogan on a website. It is the conversation we have most often, and we have it in Spanish. One piece of it is not a matter of opinion: Texas courts have held that citizenship and work authorization are not prerequisites to recovering damages for lost earning capacity. What the work was worth, and what the injury took away, is proved the same way it would be for anyone.
Attorney Manuel Diaz put the underlying pattern to the Mexico City daily La Crónica de Hoy:
“Estamos buscando ese balance y para obtenerlo, tenemos que ser vocales, tenemos que pelear, tenemos que defendernos.”
We are looking for that balance, and to get it, we have to be vocal, we have to fight, we have to defend ourselves. The full interview is on our site. Our pages on workplace injuries and construction accidents go into how those cases are built.
Why the number in a catastrophic case is not the medical bill
In a routine injury case, past medical expenses anchor the value. In a catastrophic case they are often the smallest piece of the picture, and treating them as the measure of the claim is how families end up undercompensated.
The real components sit in the future. What will care cost for the rest of this person’s life. What could they have earned across a working career, and what can they earn now. What does the house need in order to be livable, and the vehicle in order to be usable. Who provides attendant care, and what is it worth when a spouse leaves a job to do it. Answering those questions usually takes a life care planner, a forensic economist, a vocational expert, and the treating physicians. That work takes months and costs money to produce, which is one practical reason the firm handling the case matters.
One piece of that calculation is specific to the families we represent. When the injured person was supporting relatives in another country, that support is part of what the injury took away, and it has to be documented rather than assumed.
When the family is not all in Texas
An injury like this does not stay inside one country. The person who was hurt is often the reason a household in Mexico, Colombia or Costa Rica makes rent. Parents abroad have to be told what happened by someone who can explain it in Spanish, at whatever hour they are able to take the call, and decisions end up being made by relatives who have no way to sit in a Texas waiting room.
Manuel Diaz was born in Mexico City, and the firm works across Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and the United States. That means a family abroad can be part of the case rather than hear about it afterward, and when something has to be handled in another country, we know the lawyer to call instead of leaving the family to find one. It also means the money that was being sent home is documented the way the medical bills are: the remittance records, the names of the people who depended on it, and how long it had been going on. Nobody collects that unless somebody asks for it.
The early offer problem
Insurers often move quickly on catastrophic claims, and the offer can look enormous to a family that has never seen a number like it. The difficulty is that a release is final. Once it is signed, a complication two years later, a revision surgery, an infection that costs a second amputation, or a brain injury that proves worse than the early scans suggested, all of it becomes the family’s problem.
When an injury is permanent, the settlement has to be built on what the coming decades will cost rather than on what has been billed so far, and that projection has to exist before anyone signs. Be careful with the recorded statement as well. The other side’s insurer is entitled to ask for one, and a person on pain medication three weeks after a serious injury is in no condition to give it.
The deadline, and why it is shorter than it looks
Texas generally allows two years from the day a claim accrues, under Section 16.003. Exceptions exist and some are significant, including rules for claimants who were minors at the time.
Two years sounds generous until you count what has to happen inside it. The medical picture has to stabilize enough for a physician to give a reliable prognosis, and that alone can take a year. The expert work above has to be done. Evidence has to be preserved before it disappears, which in a commercial vehicle case means moving on the carrier’s electronic data within weeks, and in a premises case usually means requesting video before the system overwrites itself. When a catastrophic injury proves fatal, the claim changes shape and splits in two, which we cover in our article on wrongful death and survival claims.
What happens when you call
Three steps, and the first one costs nothing and commits you to nothing. First, one conversation about what happened and where the treatment stands. If an insurer has already called asking for a recorded statement, that is the first thing to talk about. Second, evidence gets preserved before it is gone. Third, and this is the step that gets skipped, nobody puts a number on the case until the medical picture is clear enough for a physician to say what the next several decades look like. That projection is what stands between a family and an early offer.
What helps a catastrophic case, starting now
Keep every medical record and bill, including the ones that look duplicative. Photograph the injury as it changes over time, because a progression communicates in a way a single image does not. Keep a short daily note about pain, sleep, mobility and what the person can no longer do without help. Track the hours family members spend providing care. Save receipts for everything bought to accommodate the injury, from a shower chair to a ramp. If you were sending money to family in another country, keep those records too.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a catastrophic injury in Texas?
There is no single statutory definition. The label is generally applied to permanent injuries that require lifelong care and reduce or eliminate the ability to work, including severe burns, amputation, spinal cord injury, paralysis, traumatic brain injury, and injuries requiring multiple surgeries.
I was hurt at work. Is workers’ compensation my only option?
Not necessarily. Texas does not require private employers to carry workers’ compensation, so the first question is whether this employer subscribes. Beyond that, a third party may also be responsible, such as an equipment manufacturer, a general contractor, another subcontractor or a property owner, and that claim can exist alongside a comp claim.
Does immigration status affect an injury claim?
A personal injury claim in Texas rests on someone else’s negligence and on the harm it caused. Texas courts have held that neither citizenship nor a work authorization permit is a prerequisite to recovering damages for lost earning capacity. Status is not relevant to how an accident happened. Whether a defendant can raise it on damages is narrower and depends on what they can actually prove.
Can I still recover if I was partly at fault?
Texas applies a proportionate responsibility system, and a claim may still proceed when the injured person carries some share of the responsibility, up to a limit.
Do I need to speak English to be represented?
No. Manuel Diaz Law Firm handles matters in Spanish, and has since it opened.
My family is in another country. Can they still be part of the case?
Yes. The firm works across Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia and the United States, and relatives abroad are spoken to in Spanish. Support the injured person was sending to family in another country is also part of what the injury took away, and it can be documented and claimed.
Contact Our Catastrophic Injury Lawyers Today
Nobody plans for this, and nobody should have to work out the next forty years alone, on pain medication, while an adjuster is calling. That is the part you are hiring out. At Manuel Diaz Law Firm, PC, we build these cases around what the coming decades will actually cost, using the medical and economic evidence needed to prove it, rather than around the bills that have come in so far. Manuel Diaz was born in Mexico City and has spent his career representing Spanish-speaking families in Texas courts, including workers whose employers told them nothing could be done. You can read more about our catastrophic injury practice or our full personal injury practice.
There is no fee unless we win your case. Please call (855) 900-3429 today for a free case evaluation with our catastrophic injury lawyers. Manuel Diaz Law Firm, PC serves clients throughout Texas, including Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Denton, Mesquite, and other nearby areas.
Zealously Serving Clients Throughout Texas
Manuel Diaz Law Firm, PC represents injured people from offices in Dallas, Fort Worth, Denton, Mesquite and San Antonio. Hablamos español, and we have since the firm opened. You can reach us through our contact page or meet our attorneys here.
This article is general information about Texas law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case turns on its own facts.
