Texas Put a Price Tag on Your Loved One's Life. Here's the Number.

Medical Malpractice

By Steven A. Lopez | Personal Injury Attorney, San Antonio, Texas

 

Texas passed a law that put a price tag on your life. If a hospital makes a mistake that kills someone you love, that number is the most you will ever see in a courtroom, no matter what happened, no matter how careless the mistake was, no matter how much your family lost.

In 2003, the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 4, and voters approved the constitutional amendment behind it that September. The law capped non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases at $250,000 per claimant against a health care provider. Against a hospital or other health care institution, the cap is also $250,000 per claimant, up to $500,000 if more than one institution is involved. That is codified in Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 74.301, and it is not adjusted for inflation.

Non-economic damages cover pain, suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement, and loss of companionship. In plain terms, that is the loss of a parent, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a child. Wrongful death claims run through a related section of the same chapter, one that does adjust for inflation over time, but the ceiling works the same way. There is a number, and no jury in Bexar County, or anywhere else in Texas, can give your family more than that number.

The Cases Stopped Getting Filed

Since the cap passed, the number of medical malpractice cases filed in Texas has dropped sharply. Data from the Texas Department of Insurance shows resolved malpractice claims fell by nearly two-thirds between 2003 and 2011. Average payouts dropped 22 percent over the same period, down to about $199,000 per claim. By 2014, Texas ranked 29th among all states for malpractice claims per capita.

That drop did not happen because hospitals got safer. It happened because the math stopped working for the families who needed a lawyer most.

Medical malpractice cases require expensive expert review before a lawyer can even file. Medical records have to be pulled apart by a specialist who can explain, in terms a jury understands, exactly how the standard of care was violated. That work costs tens of thousands of dollars before a case ever sees a courtroom. When the most a family can recover for the human loss is capped at $250,000, and the case itself might cost $75,000 or more just to develop, a lot of valid cases never get filed. Cases that would have gone in front of a jury and might have forced a hospital to change how it operates simply disappear.

What the Cap Was Supposed to Do

The cap was sold to Texans as a way to bring down health care costs and attract more doctors to the state. Some of that happened. Malpractice insurance premiums for physicians fell substantially after 2003, and Texas did see a modest increase in the number of practicing physicians in the years that followed.

What families were promised, lower costs for patients, is harder to find in the data. The savings flowed to insurers and providers first. For the people who can least afford to absorb a loss, families who lost someone they loved to a preventable medical mistake, the law left them with a fixed number and a much harder path to ever hearing a jury say what happened was wrong.

What This Means If Someone You Love Was Hurt

The cap does not touch economic damages. Past and future medical bills, lost wages, and loss of earning capacity are not capped in Texas. If your case has real economic losses attached to it, in addition to the human loss, that changes the math and it changes whether a case is worth filing.

This is also why the medical records matter more than most families realize going in. A case built on a thin chart and a gut feeling that something went wrong will not survive the cost of developing it. A case built on a clear departure from the standard of care, documented and provable, has a real path forward even with the cap in place.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the medical malpractice damage cap in Texas?

Texas caps non-economic damages, pain, suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement, and loss of companionship, at $250,000 per claimant against an individual health care provider, and $250,000 per claimant against a health care institution, up to $500,000 if multiple institutions are involved. This has been the law since House Bill 4 took effect on September 1, 2003.

Does the cap apply to medical bills and lost wages?

No. Economic damages, including past and future medical expenses, lost income, and loss of earning capacity, are not subject to the cap under Texas law. Only non-economic damages are limited.

Can a family recover more by suing multiple defendants?

Sometimes. The cap applies per claimant, per defendant category. A case against a surgeon, an anesthesiologist, and a hospital can produce separate caps that add up to more than $250,000 total, though the institutional caps are limited to $500,000 combined. Every case is different, and this is worth reviewing with an attorney who has actually litigated against the cap.

Why do so few Texas malpractice cases get filed?

Malpractice cases require costly expert review before they can be filed at all, often tens of thousands of dollars in medical expert fees alone. When the cap limits what a family can recover for the human cost of a loss, that upfront cost makes many valid cases financially unworkable for both the family and the attorney.

Has the cap changed since 2003?

The $250,000 cap on non-economic damages against providers and single institutions has not been adjusted for inflation since it was enacted. A separate wrongful death cap under the same chapter of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code does adjust annually.

Talk to Someone Who Has Litigated Against the Cap

If someone you love was hurt or died because of a preventable medical error in San Antonio, Bexar County, or anywhere across South Texas, from the Medical Center to Loop 410 and beyond, you deserve a straight answer about whether a case can be built and what it is actually worth under Texas law. I review these cases personally, and I will tell you honestly if the cap makes a case financially workable before you spend a single dollar on it.

Call my San Antonio office for a free, confidential case review.

Steven A. Lopez is a personal injury attorney based in San Antonio, Texas, representing families across Bexar County and South Texas in medical malpractice and catastrophic injury cases.