When you are injured in a car accident, you can typically sue for numerous damages. One common form of damages you can claim in a lawsuit is for emotional distress.
Car accidents often result in physical injuries, which commonly give rise to emotional injuries. As such, you are usually entitled to be compensated for emotional harm due to negligence. Our attorneys can help you assess emotional distress and use your medical and mental health records to justify your claims. If you suffer from anxiety, depression, or other psychological harm from your accident, you deserve compensation. If we cannot secure these damages in your settlement, we will argue for them before a judge and jury.
Call The Queenan Law Firm today at (817) 476-1797 for a free case analysis with our Texas car accident lawyers.
When Can You Sue for Emotional Distress After a Texas Car Accident?
Emotional distress claims are not a distinct tort like negligence. While you can seek compensation for emotional distress in a negligence claim, that cannot be the sole reason for your case.
You must have suffered a physical injury of some kind that led to your emotional distress to sue for negligent infliction of emotional distress in Texas.
So, our Texas car accident lawyers will file a negligence lawsuit for you and include your claims of emotional distress in the petition, as well as your economic damages. This way, you can recover compensation for both your tangible and intangible losses in a single lawsuit.
Can You Sue Exclusively for Emotional Distress After a Texas Car Accident?
Like most answers in the law, whether you can sue for emotional distress after a car accident depends. If you want to pursue compensation for emotional distress alone, then the answer is no.
Unlike other states, Texas does not allow car accident victims to sue for just emotional distress. Texas used to allow victims to file what was known as “negligent infliction of emotional distress” lawsuits. These claims would allow victims to recover damages for emotional distress even if they were not physically injured.
What Qualifies as Emotional Distress After a Car Accident in Texas?
Numerous conditions could qualify as emotional distress after a car accident in Texas, one of the most common examples being post-traumatic stress disorder. This can lead to panic attacks and anxiety about getting back behind the wheel.
Depression is another common form of emotional distress. In more serious cases, you might have developed an eating disorder or even a substance abuse problem. Regardless, you deserve compensation for emotional damage you did not cause.
Can You Sue for Emotional Distress for Minor Car Accident Injuries?
Even minor car accidents can cause severe and long-term injuries. That said, you can still sue for emotional distress if your injuries are not too serious.
It is common for victims to experience some degree of emotional harm from a car accident. The fact that you were physically injured and that the injury caused emotional turmoil is enough for you to deserve non-economic damages. Our team can help you get the evidence that ties your injuries to the psychological challenges you have suffered.
Can You Sue if You Experience Anxiety from a Car Accident in Texas?
Emotional distress is a broad term that encompasses the mental and emotional impacts of serious accidents and injuries, including anxiety.
If you experience significant anxiety after a traumatic car accident that affects your daily quality of life, you can sue for those damages in Texas. Pay attention to how anxiety impedes you, document the frequency and severity of panic attacks, and consider seeing a mental health professional to document your anxiety and its effects on your life.
Can You Sue if You Experience Depression from a Car Accident in Texas?
Many car accident injuries, from permanently disfiguring scars to those that cause chronic pain, can lead to depression as a common side effect for victims.
If you experience depression after a car accident, that might delay your return to work and create other difficulties in your personal or professional life. Many car accident victims experience some level of depression, especially if physical injuries have significantly changed their daily life or close relationships.
Can You Sue if You Experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from a Car Accident in Texas?
Victims involved in especially serious or fatal car accidents might experience post-traumatic stress disorder in the aftermath, which can have very real financial consequences for victims.
Post-traumatic stress disorder because of a car accident might stop a victim from returning to driving for a long time, leading to increased transportation expenses. Post-traumatic stress disorder can cause significant quality of life issues as well, such as difficulty sleeping and intense anxiety and panic attacks.
Like with other non-economic harms in Texas, damages for post-traumatic stress disorder are only available when there is a physical injury involved, barring some exceptions.
Can You Sue for Emotional Distress if You Are Partially at Fault for a Car Accident in Texas?
Being partially at fault does not automatically bar you from suing someone else for emotional distress and other damages, but it could affect your case and recovery.
Texas is a modified comparative fault state, meaning a plaintiff may pursue a compensation claim only if they are 50% or less at fault for an accident.
Sharing fault lowers your damages proportionally to your liability even if it doesn’t block it entirely, so keep that in mind.
Those who are more than 50% at fault for their injuries may not sue for any damages in Texas, including emotional distress.
What Are the Steps to Recover Compensation for Emotional Distress from a Car Accident in Texas?
There will be a few steps before you can recover compensation for your emotional distress in Texas, all of which our lawyers can help you complete.
First, our attorneys will want to assess your claims of emotional distress to see if they will stand up to legal challenges. Once we have determined you are the victim of emotional distress, we can file your lawsuit. The next step is proving your emotional distress in court and the damages you have incurred, unless we settle the case without a trial.
How to Know Whether You Can Sue for Emotional Distress After a Car Accident
Before suing for emotional distress, our lawyer will assess your claim. Without a proper assessment, you risk losing the case. Our lawyers can determine whether the other driver is liable and whether it is worth seeking a settlement before going to court.
In general, we will assess your physical injuries from the crash to determine what your emotional distress might be. We often review photos of injuries and the accident scene to assess severity. We will also comb through your medical records and evaluations from your mental health providers to determine what compensation would be adequate for your emotional losses.
How Do You Calculate Emotional Distress After a Car Accident?
Clients deserve maximum compensation for their emotional distress, but sometimes, they want more than is reasonable. This makes sense because emotional harm is so personally and hard for victims to view even somewhat objectively, which our lawyers can do when calculating non-economic damages in your case.
We can calculate a dollar amount for your emotional distress that the court is most likely to award using either the multiplier or per diem method.
Remember, your injuries do not have to be severe to file a claim for any compensation. The best thing to do is have our team decide whether you should claim emotional damages so you don’t lose out on compensation.
How Long Do You Have to Sue for Emotional Distress from a Car Accident?
Once we have assessed your injuries and your emotional harm, we will be ready to file your lawsuit. Personal injury plaintiffs must follow a strict statute of limitations or be barred from getting any compensation, economic or non-economic.
The personal injury statute of limitations in Texas is 2 years. You might have more time to sue for emotional distress and economic damages from an injury if one of Texas’ tolling exceptions applies because you were injured as a minor or by an out-of-state driver who left the state, among other reasons.
What Medical Evidence Can You Use to Prove Emotional Distress After a Car Accident?
While it might seem obvious from the severity of the car accident that the victim has emotional distress, our lawyers will still need to prove it, which we can start to do with medical records.
You may already have relevant medical and mental health records in your possession when you contact us about your case. This will be a great start to your case, but you don’t need to bring every single copy to your case review.
Our Texas car accident lawyers work for you, and part of that job is obtaining all the records relevant to your case on your behalf. This means we will contact each provider you visited for records documenting your injuries and their psychological impact. We will then use these records to formulate our arguments for your emotional compensation.
Can You Get Compensation for Emotional Distress from a Car Accident Settlement?
Our goal is to make your claims of emotional distress as hard to argue against as possible. The more evidence we have, the easier it is to prove these damages. If your emotional distress is clear, a case might settle before a trial is needed.
You can get emotional distress for a car accident from a settlement and avoid going to court altogether. It typically takes time for settlements to compensate sufficiently for non-economic damages, as defendants aren’t eager to offer larger amounts right out of the gate.
Can You Testify to Prove Emotional Distress from a Car Accident in Texas?
Only you can really explain the subjective effects your accident has had, so we may have you testify about how your injuries have affected your life.
During your testimony, you might discuss how you have not been able to sleep well since the accident or have been unable to participate in sports you commonly play.
We will also want you to explain how your injuries have affected your family life. If you have not been able to spend time with your children or suffered a loss of intimacy with your spouse because of your injuries, it would likely be a great source of emotional distress for the court to hear. We can also call friends and family to testify to what they have observed in your behavior since the accident.
Does Texas Limit Compensation for Emotional Distress After Car Accidents?
The emotional distress and other non-economic damages you experience after a car accident might be incredibly overwhelming and may even seem more consequential to you than economic damages. No matter what your damages are, you should be able to recover them in full.
Texas does not limit compensation for emotional distress or other non-economic damages in car accident and other personal injury cases. Although compensation isn’t capped, it is also not guaranteed, and you need to prove non-economic and economic damages to recover them.
Our Texas Car Accident Attorneys Can Help Get the Damages You Deserve
For a free case assessment with our Texas car accident lawyers, contact The Queenan Law Firm at (817) 476-1797.