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A spinal cord injury case turns on two numbers: the level of the injury, and the number of years the person will live with it. Everything else in the case is downstream of those two.
Where the cord was injured determines what function remains. An injury in the cervical spine affects the arms as well as the legs and often affects breathing. An injury lower down affects the legs and trunk. Whether the injury is complete or incomplete determines how much signal gets through below the level.
This is not medical trivia in a legal case. It is the fact that sets the cost of care for the rest of a life, and it is the fact the defense will spend the most effort disputing at the margins.
A serious spinal cord injury case that is properly worked contains a life care plan built by a qualified professional. Done correctly it accounts for:
Attendant care, priced by hours per day at market rates, for a lifetime. This is usually the single largest line and the one most often understated.
A power wheelchair, its replacement cycle, and everything that goes with it: the seating system, the cushion that prevents pressure injuries, the backup manual chair.
Home modification. Ramps, widened doorways, a roll-in shower, a lift, sometimes a different house.
An accessible vehicle, and its replacement cycle.
Bowel and bladder management supplies, consumed daily, forever.
The complications that are predictable in this population and expensive when they arrive: pressure injuries, urinary tract infections, autonomic dysreflexia, spasticity management, shoulder degeneration from years of wheelchair propulsion.
Therapy, equipment maintenance, medications, and periodic physician management.
Then an economist reduces the plan to present value, and a vocational expert addresses what work, if any, remains available.
A case presented without this work is a case presented to a jury as an invitation to estimate. That is not a strategy.
The question is not what the person was earning. It is what the person could have earned across a working life, and what remains available now. For a young person with decades of work ahead, this figure can rival the care number.
The mechanism matters. Spinal cord injuries come from high-energy events: highway collisions, commercial vehicle crashes, falls from height on construction sites, and being struck. Those cases carry physical evidence that does not survive casual delay. Vehicle electronic data. The vehicle itself. Scene conditions. Equipment. Surveillance footage on a short retention cycle.
The family is in a hospital during the window when that evidence is available. A preservation letter sent in the first days is frequently the difference between proving the mechanism and arguing about it.
Every statute and case linked above was read at its primary source. Texas statutes change every legislative session and case law is constantly changing.
This page is general information about Texas law. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Cases of this size routinely exceed a primary policy. Excess and umbrella layers, employer coverage, commercial policies on a vehicle, and the injured person’s own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage may all be in play, sometimes across policies the injured person did not know existed. Identifying every layer early shapes the entire strategy.
Schiffer Law Firm handles spinal cord injury and paralysis cases in Houston and across Texas.
There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Call 713-521-0059.
This page is general information, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Because it drives the care requirement for life, and therefore the number. A higher level injury generally means more attendant care.
Care hours, equipment and its replacement cycle, home and vehicle modification, medication, therapy and the complications that are statistically likely.
Rarely. A case cannot be valued before the medical picture is stable enough to project over a lifetime.
Two years under Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code.
