Injury lawyer in San Antonio for serious injuries, falls, dog bites and work injuries

An injury claim is only as strong as the proof of the injury. The crash or the fall explains how you were hurt; the medical records, the bills and the people who treat you explain how badly, and for how long. This page is about the injuries themselves, how they are proved under Texas law, and the injury cases that do not involve a vehicle at all: falls on someone else’s property, dog bites and injuries at work. It is written by LAWBOSS – Uvalle Law Firm, PLLC.

Where serious injuries are treated in San Antonio

San Antonio has two Level I trauma centers, the highest level of trauma care. University Hospital, run by University Health in the South Texas Medical Center, is the only adult and pediatric Level I trauma center in the city and serves the 22 counties of Texas Trauma Service Area P. Brooke Army Medical Center, at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, is the other adult Level I center; about 85 percent of its trauma admissions are people from the community with no military connection, and its burn center is the only American Burn Association verified burn center in the Department of War.

If you were taken to either hospital, your records start there: the emergency medical services run sheet, the trauma bay notes, the imaging and the discharge plan. We request them early, because they are the first and most trusted account of what the crash or fall did to you.

The injuries we see most, and how each is proved

Traumatic brain injuries and concussions

A severe brain injury is usually obvious on a scan. A concussion or a mild brain injury often is not, and the person may look fine at the scene. The signs come later: headaches, trouble concentrating, memory lapses, irritability, sleep problems, sensitivity to light and noise. These cases are proved by what was recorded at the start (a blow to the head, confusion, loss of consciousness), by consistent reports to doctors afterward, by testing from the right medical providers, and by the people who see the change at home and at work.

Spinal cord and back injuries

Herniated discs, fractured vertebrae and spinal cord injuries range from months of pain to permanent paralysis. Insurers often argue that a disc problem was there before the crash. The answer is usually in the records: what your back was like before, what changed after, what the imaging shows and what your doctors say about the cause. Spinal cord injuries that cause paralysis call for a plan of future care, often costed by medical and economic witnesses.

Broken bones

Fractures are easy to see on an X-ray and hard to argue with. The questions are about what follows: surgery, hardware, time off work, physical therapy, whether the bone heals cleanly, and whether arthritis or a limp is likely years later.

Burns and scarring

Burns from vehicle fires, explosions and workplace accidents can need months of treatment and grafting. Disfigurement is treated as its own kind of damage in Texas injury cases, separate from pain. Photographs taken through healing, and the treating doctors’ accounts of what is permanent, carry these cases.

Soft tissue injuries and whiplash

Neck and back sprains are the most common crash injuries and the most doubted. They do not show on an X-ray, and insurers routinely discount them. They are proved the plain way: prompt treatment, a consistent account to every provider, the physical therapy notes and the effect on your days.

The hardest injuries to prove

People ask which injury is the hardest to prove. The honest answer is any injury that cannot be seen on an image and that the injured person describes differently on different days: mild brain injuries, chronic pain, nerve injuries and the emotional effects of a serious crash, such as anxiety behind the wheel. None of these is impossible to prove. They take more care: an early record of the symptoms, the right medical specialties, consistent reports, and witnesses who knew you before. The cases that go badly are usually the ones where the first doctor’s visit came weeks late, or the records say one thing and the claim another.

How Texas law measures an injury

Texas divides compensatory damages into economic damages, meant to compensate actual economic or pecuniary loss (Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 41.001), and noneconomic damages. In an injury case they usually include:

Kind of damage	What it covers	How it is shown
Past medical expenses	Treatment already received	Bills and records, limited to the amount actually paid or incurred (section 41.0105)
Future medical expenses	Treatment you will need	Your doctors’ opinions, sometimes a life care plan
Lost earnings	Pay lost while you recovered	Pay stubs, tax returns, a letter from your employer
Loss of earning capacity	The ability to earn in the future	Medical limits plus vocational and economic testimony
Physical pain and mental anguish	What the injury has done to you, past and future	Your account, your family’s, and the medical records
Physical impairment	Things you can no longer do	Before and after: work, family, sport, daily tasks
Disfigurement	Scars and visible changes	Photographs and medical records

Two rules shape the medical side. First, recovery of medical expenses is limited to the amount actually paid or incurred by you or on your behalf (section 41.0105), so the figure that counts is usually what your health insurer paid, or what you still owe, rather than the first amount billed. Second, Texas lets a provider or its records custodian prove the cost and necessity of treatment by affidavit, with an itemized statement, unless the other side serves a counter-affidavit in time (section 18.001). We gather these affidavits as your treatment goes on, so the bills can be proved without calling every provider to court.

Exemplary damages are separate and rare: they require clear and convincing proof of fraud, malice or gross negligence (section 41.003). We do not publish amounts from past cases, and nobody can value an injury on the first call. What we can do early is tell you which facts help, which hurt and what we need to prove each one.

Hospital liens and who gets paid from a settlement

A Texas hospital has a lien on the injury claim of a patient it treats for injuries from an accident attributed to someone else’s negligence, if the patient was admitted within 72 hours of the accident (Property Code section 55.002). The lien extends to a hospital the patient is transferred to. Health insurers, Medicare and Medicaid can also have rights to be repaid. These claims are settled out of a recovery, and part of our job is to identify each one and resolve it, so that what you receive is not taken back later.

Premises liability: slips, trips and falls

Stores, apartment complexes, restaurants, hotels and parking lots owe their customers and guests a duty to keep the property reasonably safe. A fall is not automatically someone else’s fault. The claim usually depends on showing that the owner knew, or should have known, about the hazard, such as a spill, a broken step, poor lighting or a loose handrail, and did not fix it or warn about it in time. That is proved with photographs of the hazard, an incident report, witnesses, video and maintenance and inspection records.

• Photograph the hazard before it is cleaned up, and the area around it, including any warning sign or the lack of one.
• Report the fall to the manager and ask for a copy of the incident report, or at least the name of the person who took it.
• Keep the shoes you were wearing and the receipt that shows you were there.
• Do not guess about why you fell in a statement to the owner’s insurer. Say what you know.

Falls on public property, such as a city sidewalk or a government building, are claims against the government and come with short notice deadlines and limits of their own. The City of San Antonio’s charter requires written notice within 90 days, and it limits the City’s liability for defects in sidewalks.

Dog bites

Texas has no single statute that makes every dog owner liable for every bite. A claim is usually built on one of two grounds: that the owner knew, or should have known, that the dog was dangerous, for example from an earlier bite or attack, or that the owner was careless in how the dog was kept, for example by letting it run loose. Bites to children are common and often to the face. Get medical care first, report the bite to animal control so the dog’s history is recorded, photograph the wounds as they heal, and take the owner’s name and address. Homeowner’s and renter’s insurance policies often cover dog bites.

Injuries at work

Work injury claims in Texas start with one question: does your employer carry workers’ compensation? Texas is unusual in that, apart from public employers, coverage is generally elective (Labor Code section 406.002).

• If your employer has workers’ compensation, benefits are generally your only remedy against the employer and its employees (Labor Code section 408.001(a)). The surviving spouse or heirs of an employee killed by the employer’s gross negligence or intentional act may still seek exemplary damages (section 408.001(b)).
• If your employer does not have it, you can sue the employer for negligence, and the employer cannot defend by saying you were also negligent, that you assumed the risk, or that a coworker caused the injury (Labor Code section 406.033(a)). You still have to prove the employer’s negligence.
• If someone other than your employer caused it, such as a driver who hit you on a delivery route, the owner of the site where you were working, or the maker of a defective machine, you may have a claim against them as well as any workers’ compensation benefits.

Injuries to children

For a child, the two years to file suit generally do not start until the child turns 18, because the law does not count the time a person is younger than 18 (Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 16.001). That does not mean waiting is wise. Evidence fades, witnesses move and, in claims against the government, the short notice deadlines still matter. A parent can also have a claim of their own for the child’s medical bills. University Hospital’s separate pediatric Level I trauma program is where many seriously injured children in the region are treated.

What we do while you recover

1. Open the insurance claims that pay now, such as your PIP, so bills begin to be paid.
2. Collect records and bills from every provider as you treat, with the affidavits that prove them.
3. Document the change in your life with you and the people around you, while it is fresh.
4. Wait until the picture is clear. We do not present a claim until your doctors can say what your recovery looks like, because a claim settled too early cannot be reopened when a surgery turns out to be needed.
5. Resolve the liens before the money is paid out.

How the claim moves after that is on our personal injury attorney San Antonio page, and what to do in the first days after a crash is on our accident lawyer San Antonio page. For the overview of Texas injury law, see our personal injury lawyer San Antonio page.