Texas is a comparative negligence state, not a contributory negligence state. Under Chapter 33 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, you can recover damages after an accident as long as your share of the fault is 50 percent or less, and your award is reduced by whatever percentage of blame the jury assigns to you.1State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.001 – Proportionate Responsibility Cross the 50 percent line and you recover nothing.
That is a very different rule from the one in a true contributory negligence state, where even 1 percent of fault on the injured person’s side wipes out the entire claim. Only a handful of jurisdictions still use that harsh standard: Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Texas rejected it. The state sits in the middle ground between those all-or-nothing places and the “pure” comparative fault states where a plaintiff can recover something even at 99 percent fault.
The 50 Percent Cutoff
The core of the Texas system is a single statutory sentence: a claimant may not recover damages if their percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent.1State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.001 – Proportionate Responsibility Because juries assign fault in whole numbers, 51 percent is the effective cutoff. This is often called the 51 percent bar rule.
At exactly 50 percent, you still recover, though your damages are cut in half. At 51 percent, you get nothing no matter how severe your injuries are or how expensive your medical care was. That cliff drives much of the strategy in Texas injury litigation. Every point of blame the defense can pin on you costs real money, and pushing your share past the halfway line ends the case entirely.
How the Reduction Works
If you clear the 50 percent threshold, the court subtracts your percentage of fault from the total damages the jury awards.2Texas.gov. Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 33 – Proportionate Responsibility The reduction applies to all compensatory damages: medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, everything in that column.
A quick example. The jury finds your total damages are $200,000 and assigns you 30 percent of the fault. The court knocks off $60,000, leaving you with $140,000. Same total damages, but the jury puts you at 50 percent? You collect $100,000. At 51 percent? You collect zero.
The jury handles two questions and only two: what percentage of fault belongs to each person involved, and what the total damages are in dollars. Jurors are told not to do the reduction math themselves. The judge does that after the verdict.3Supreme Court of Texas. Order Amending Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 277
Who Gets a Share of the Fault
The fault percentages are not just split between you and the defendant you sued. The jury allocates blame across everyone the evidence implicates: you, every named defendant, anyone who already settled, and any designated responsible third party.4State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.003 – Determination of Percentage of Responsibility Every percentage is a whole number, and the total has to hit exactly 100.
The responsible-third-party mechanism is where plaintiffs often get caught off guard. A defendant can ask the court to add a non-party to the fault list, someone who contributed to the harm but whom you never sued or could not sue.5State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.004 – Designation of Responsible Third Party If the court grants that motion, the jury can put a percentage of fault on that person, and that percentage simply disappears from your recovery. Nobody pays it. The motion has to be filed at least 60 days before trial unless the court finds good cause for a later filing, and it cannot be used to point at someone the statute of limitations has already expired against unless the defendant timely disclosed the possibility during discovery.
Say you sue a trucking company after a crash. The company designates the road maintenance contractor as a responsible third party. The jury assigns the contractor 30 percent. Neither the trucking company nor anyone else picks up that 30 percent. Your recovery shrinks by that amount, and the contractor faces no legal liability at all from the designation.
When Multiple Defendants Are Liable
If more than one defendant is found liable, the default rule is that each pays only their own percentage.6State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.013 – Amount of Liability If Defendant A is 40 percent at fault and Defendant B is 30 percent at fault, each writes a check for their own share. If Defendant B is broke, uninsured, or out of business, you absorb that loss.
There is one important exception. A defendant whose own share of fault is more than 50 percent becomes jointly and severally liable for the entire recoverable amount. That defendant can be forced to pay the full judgment, including the shares assigned to other defendants. They then have a right of contribution against the co-defendants, though collecting from someone who could not pay you is usually just as hard for them.7State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.015 – Contribution
What Kinds of Cases This Covers
Chapter 33 applies to any tort-based cause of action where fault has to be split among the parties, and to claims under the Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act when fault is apportioned.8State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.002 – Applicability Car wrecks, slip-and-fall injuries, product liability claims, medical malpractice suits, and property damage cases all run through the same proportionate responsibility framework.
Three categories are carved out. Workers’ compensation claims follow their own system. Claims for exemplary (punitive) damages fall under Chapter 41 rather than Chapter 33, even when they are part of a lawsuit otherwise governed by proportionate responsibility. And lawsuits over damages from methamphetamine manufacturing are excluded entirely.8State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 33.002 – Applicability
Assumption of Risk Is No Longer a Complete Bar
Texas used to treat voluntary assumption of a known risk as a total bar to recovery, much like contributory negligence. That absolute defense has largely been folded into the comparative fault analysis. Your awareness of a danger and your choice to proceed anyway do not automatically kill the claim. Instead, the jury considers that awareness and conduct when it assigns fault percentages.
A defendant can still argue you knew the risk and went forward anyway. The consequence is a higher fault number for you rather than an automatic dismissal. If that higher number pushes you past 50 percent, the outcome ends up the same as the old rule, but the jury reaches it after weighing the evidence rather than a judge cutting the case off at the threshold. One area remains unsettled: certain employer-employee situations, where Texas courts have sent conflicting signals about whether an employee’s full awareness of a hazard eliminates the employer’s duty entirely.
The Two-Year Filing Deadline
Comparative fault rules only matter if you file on time. Texas gives you two years from the date your cause of action accrues to file a personal injury suit, and the same two-year window covers property damage, wrongful death, and most other tort claims. For wrongful death, the clock starts on the date of death rather than the date of the underlying injury.9State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 16.003 – Two-Year Limitations Period
Missing the deadline is fatal. No amount of clear liability on the other side will save a claim filed a day late. The discovery rule can push the start of the clock in narrow circumstances, mostly medical malpractice cases where the injury was not immediately apparent, but Texas courts apply it sparingly. If you know you were hurt and have reason to suspect someone else’s negligence caused it, the limitations period is already running.
Construction-related negligence claims face an outer boundary on top of the two-year rule. A statute of repose bars claims filed more than ten years after substantial completion of the improvement, and a shorter six-year window applies to residential construction when the builder provides a warranty meeting specific minimum terms for workmanship, building systems, and structural components.