How a Spinal Cord Injury Can Affect the Value of a Texas Personal Injury Claim

The Value of a Spinal Cord Injury Claim Depends on a Lifetime of Losses

A spinal cord injury can turn a serious accident into a life-altering event. These injuries can affect movement, sensation, bodily functions, independence, and the ability to work. They can also create medical and personal-care costs that continue for decades.

September is Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month, a time to recognize the lasting medical, financial, and personal impact these injuries can have on individuals and families. United Spinal Association highlights the observance each September to raise awareness about spinal cord injuries, accessibility, and the challenges people living with paralysis may face.

According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center's 2026 Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury Facts and Figures, the United States sees an estimated 18,482 new traumatic spinal cord injuries each year. Vehicle crashes account for 37.1% of recent injuries, while falls account for another 32.5%.

In San Antonio and throughout Texas, spinal cord damage can result from serious car accident injuries, truck accidents, falls, workplace accidents, and other forms of trauma. When someone else's negligence caused the injury, determining the potential value of a claim requires looking well beyond the bills that have already arrived.

At The Herrera Law Firm, our San Antonio catastrophic injury lawyers look at how the injury affects a client's medical needs, ability to work, independence, family life, and future. A spinal cord injury claim needs to account for losses that may continue long after an insurance company wants the case resolved.

Why Can Spinal Cord Injuries Lead to High-Value Claims?

A spinal cord injury damages the bundle of nerves and nerve fibers that carries signals between the brain and the rest of the body. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the effects can include temporary or permanent changes in movement, sensation, strength, bladder and bowel control, breathing, sexual function, and other bodily functions.

Some people regain substantial function. Others experience permanent paralysis or require lifelong assistance. The prognosis, neurological level of injury, degree of impairment, and complications all affect what future care may be necessary.

The financial impact can be enormous. The 2026 National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center data sheet provides historical estimates of health care and living expenses in 2025 dollars:

 

Those estimates cover health care and living expenses directly attributable to traumatic spinal cord injury. They don't include lost wages, fringe benefits, or reduced productivity, which can add substantially to the financial impact of an injury.

Costs in an individual claim can include hospitalization, surgery, rehabilitation, wheelchairs and other equipment, medications, home modifications, accessible transportation, and attendant care. A serious personal injury settlement may also need to account for lost earning capacity and other losses that continue far into the future.

How Do Injury Level and Completeness Affect Claim Value?

Two spinal cord injuries can produce very different medical needs and long-term consequences.

Paraplegia and tetraplegia describe the level and extent of the body affected. An injury lower on the spinal cord may primarily affect the legs and lower body, resulting in paraplegia. An injury higher in the cervical spinal cord can affect the arms, legs, and other bodily functions, resulting in tetraplegia, also called quadriplegia.

Complete and incomplete describe the neurological impairment. A complete injury involves no nerve communication below the injury site. With an incomplete injury, some sensory or motor function remains below the injury.

An incomplete injury doesn't automatically mean the financial or personal impact is minor. Someone may retain some movement while still experiencing severe weakness, chronic pain, bladder or bowel dysfunction, limited mobility, and an inability to return to prior employment.

Higher-level injuries can require more intensive assistance and equipment, which may increase projected future costs. But the value of a legal claim isn't determined by the diagnosis alone. Age, prognosis, functional ability, future medical needs, employment history, liability, insurance coverage, and the strength of the evidence all matter.

What Economic Losses Can Affect the Value of a Claim?

The financial losses associated with a spinal cord injury can extend well beyond the initial hospital stay. A Texas personal injury claim may include economic damages supported by the facts and evidence, such as:

• Past Medical Expenses: Emergency treatment, hospitalization, surgery, rehabilitation, medications, therapy, and other care already received.
• Future Medical Expenses: Treatment, rehabilitation, equipment replacement, medications, follow-up care, and other medical needs reasonably expected in the future.
• Attendant and Personal Care: Some people need assistance with bathing, dressing, transfers, transportation, meal preparation, and other daily activities.
• Home and Vehicle Modifications: Wheelchair ramps, wider doorways, accessible bathrooms, lifts, adapted vehicles, and other changes may be necessary to preserve independence.
• Lost Income: Time away from work during hospitalization and rehabilitation can create substantial immediate financial losses.
• Loss of Earning Capacity: Permanent limitations may prevent someone from returning to the same career or earning what they would have earned without the injury.

Life care planners, treating physicians, rehabilitation professionals, vocational experts, and economists may become important in a catastrophic injury case when future losses need to be projected over many years.

What Noneconomic Losses Factor Into a Spinal Cord Injury Claim?

Medical expenses and lost income don't capture everything a spinal cord injury can take from someone.

Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 41.001 defines noneconomic damages to include physical pain and suffering, mental or emotional anguish, loss of consortium, disfigurement, physical impairment, loss of enjoyment of life, and other nonpecuniary losses.

• Pain and Suffering: Spinal cord injuries can cause chronic pain, nerve pain, muscle spasms, and complications that continue long after the initial accident.
• Mental Anguish: A sudden loss of independence, mobility, or career can have a significant emotional and psychological impact.
• Physical Impairment: Paralysis or other functional limitations can prevent someone from performing activities that were part of everyday life before the accident.
• Loss of Enjoyment of Life: The injury may interfere with hobbies, recreation, family activities, travel, and other meaningful parts of life.
• Disfigurement: Surgical scars, muscle atrophy, or other lasting changes in appearance may support a disfigurement claim when established by the evidence.
• Loss of Consortium: A spouse may have a separate derivative claim when a serious injury substantially impairs the companionship, affection, comfort, or other elements of the marital relationship.

These losses aren't valued according to a fixed formula. The evidence needs to show how the injury has affected the individual person's life rather than simply attaching a number to the diagnosis.

Texas doesn't impose one general statutory cap on noneconomic damages in an ordinary negligence claim. Different limits can apply to particular types of cases, however. For example, Texas has specific noneconomic-damage limits for health care liability claims, and separate liability limits can apply to claims against government entities.

How Does Shared Fault Affect a Spinal Cord Injury Claim's Value?

Even when damages are substantial, the amount someone can recover also depends on liability.

Texas uses a proportionate-responsibility system. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.001, a claimant generally can't recover damages if their percentage of responsibility is greater than 50%.

If the injured person is 50% responsible or less, § 33.012 generally reduces the recoverable damages by the claimant's percentage of responsibility. For example, if a jury found $2 million in damages and determined that the injured person was 30% responsible, the recoverable amount would generally be reduced by 30% before considering other issues that may affect the judgment.

That makes evidence of how the accident happened particularly important. Vehicle data, photographs, video, witness statements, expert analysis, and other evidence may be needed when an insurance company argues that the injured person contributed to the accident.

The liability questions can also become more complicated in a commercial truck crash involving multiple companies or a construction accident involving several contractors.

What Can Increase or Decrease the Value of a Spinal Cord Injury Claim?

No two spinal cord injury claims are valued exactly the same way. Several factors can have a substantial effect on the amount that may ultimately be recovered.

• Severity and Permanence of the Injury: The neurological level, completeness of the injury, expected recovery, and permanent functional limitations can dramatically affect future damages.
• Age at Injury: A younger person may face decades of medical treatment, equipment replacement, attendant care, and lost earning capacity.
• Future Medical Needs: A well-supported life care plan can identify treatment, rehabilitation, equipment, home modifications, and personal assistance expected over the person's lifetime.
• Employment and Earning History: Vocational and economic evidence can help establish how the injury changes someone's future ability to work and earn income.
• Available Insurance and Responsible Parties: A severe injury doesn't automatically mean sufficient insurance exists. Identifying every legally responsible person or company and the available coverage can be crucial.
• Strength of the Liability Evidence: Clear evidence showing how the accident occurred can limit attempts to shift responsibility to the injured person.
• Medical Documentation: Records from treating physicians, rehabilitation specialists, therapists, and other providers can establish the diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and continuing limitations.

For example, a spinal cord injury caused by a serious motorcycle accident may involve very different liability and insurance issues from the same neurological injury caused by defective equipment or a workplace accident.

That's why national averages and settlements from other cases can provide context but can't determine what one person's claim is worth.

Can Insurance Companies Challenge a High-Value Spinal Cord Injury Claim?

Yes. When a claim includes years or decades of projected expenses, an insurer may challenge both liability and damages.

Disputes may involve whether certain future treatment is necessary, how many hours of attendant care someone will require, whether the person can return to some form of work, the cost of future equipment, or whether particular symptoms were caused by the accident.

An insurer may also argue that the injured person shares responsibility for the accident or that another party should bear part of the fault.

That's why a spinal cord injury claim often needs much more than a stack of current medical bills. Medical opinions, future-care projections, employment evidence, accident reconstruction, economic analysis, and testimony from people who understand how the injury has changed the person's daily life can all become important.

How Can a San Antonio Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer Help Me?

A spinal cord injury claim in Texas can involve medical, financial, insurance, and liability issues at the same time. You may be dealing with rehabilitation and major changes at home while medical bills continue to grow and your ability to work remains uncertain.

Our San Antonio personal injury lawyers at The Herrera Law Firm have represented seriously injured Texans for decades. We can investigate what caused the accident, identify potentially responsible parties and insurance coverage, gather the medical evidence, and work with qualified professionals when future care and lost earning capacity need to be calculated.

Winning isn't luck. It's knowing how to fight. If a spinal cord injury has changed your life or the life of someone in your family, contact us for a free consultation. We handle personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis, so you don't pay attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you.