Texas does not let partial fault wipe out a claim, but it does put a hard line at 50 percent. Under Civil Practice and Remedies Code chapter 33, a jury assigns a percentage of responsibility to everyone involved, your share comes off what you recover, and if your share is greater than 50 percent you recover nothing. The percentages the jury chooses set the final number.
The short version
- The bar is above 50 percent. A claimant found more than half responsible recovers nothing (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001). At exactly 50 percent you still recover, reduced by half.
- The jury names the shares. Whole-number percentages go to the claimant, the defendants, anyone who settled, and any designated responsible third party (§ 33.003).
- Settlements are credited too. After your percentage is subtracted, the court also subtracts the dollar amount of settlements (§ 33.012).
- A seat belt can enter the fight. Since the Texas Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Nabors Well Services v. Romero, relevant evidence of seat-belt use or non-use can be admitted to apportion responsibility.
- Fault is proved, not assumed. The crash report, photographs, witnesses and vehicle data are what move a percentage up or down.
Is Texas a comparative negligence state?
Yes, with a cutoff. Texas uses proportionate responsibility: the percentage of fault assigned to you reduces your recovery, and a percentage greater than 50 percent bars it. The statute calls the system proportionate responsibility and speaks of a “percentage of responsibility.”
The bar is one sentence in § 33.001: where the chapter applies, a claimant whose percentage is greater than 50 percent takes nothing. Section 33.002 defines where it applies: tort claims in which a defendant, settling person or responsible third party is found responsible for part of the harm. That reaches car and truck crashes, and it also reaches defective product claims, because the percentage definition in § 33.011 includes harm caused by “any defective or unreasonably dangerous product.”
Section 33.002(c) lists exclusions, including actions to collect workers’ compensation benefits and exemplary-damages claims joined to a covered action. For an on-the-job crash, see when workers’ comp is not the only claim. Read the statute for yourself on the Texas Legislature’s official site (read 16 October 2026).
Who does the jury assign a percentage of fault to?
Four groups: the claimant, each defendant, each settling person, and each responsible third party the court has allowed the defense to designate. The percentages are whole numbers, and conduct goes to the jury only if there is sufficient evidence to support submitting it (§ 33.003).
Subsection (b) of § 33.003 is the safeguard: a defense lawyer cannot simply point at an empty chair, because the evidence has to be there. A “settling person,” under § 33.011, is anyone who has paid or promised something of monetary value to the claimant to resolve potential liability for the harm. That matters when several drivers are involved, which our piece on fault in chain-reaction crashes covers in depth.
The basics of how duty, breach and causation lead to a fault finding are in our walk-through of tort law in a car accident case. This article picks up after that point: once a jury is deciding percentages, what moves them, and what happens to the number afterwards.
How does your share of fault reduce what you recover?
The court works in two steps. First it reduces your damages by a percentage equal to your percentage of responsibility; then it deducts the dollar amounts paid in any settlements with other persons (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.012(a) and (b)).
The table below uses a hypothetical, round-number verdict to show the arithmetic. It is an illustration of the statute, not a prediction about any case.
| Jury’s finding for the claimant | Settlement already paid by another person | What the statute produces |
|---|---|---|
| 20 percent responsible | None | $100,000 reduced by 20 percent = $80,000 (§ 33.012(a)) |
| 20 percent responsible | $10,000 | $80,000, then further reduced by $10,000 = $70,000 (§ 33.012(a), (b)) |
| 50 percent responsible | None | Not barred, because 50 is not greater than 50; $100,000 reduced by 50 percent = $50,000 |
| 51 percent responsible | Any | Barred: no recovery (§ 33.001) |
Source: Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 33.001, 33.012, on the Texas Legislature’s statutes site, read 16 October 2026. Dollar figures are invented for illustration.
Two points follow. First, at the edge one percentage point changes the result: 50 percent produces a reduced award, 51 percent produces none. Second, the order matters when someone has already settled, so a settlement with one party should be reviewed with a lawyer before you sign. What you can recover in the first place is a separate question; see our overview of the kinds of damages a crash victim can seek.
What is a responsible third party, and why does the defense name one?
A responsible third party is someone the defendant says helped cause the harm but who is not a defendant. If the court allows the designation, the jury assigns that person a percentage, which shrinks the defendant’s own share. The designation does not by itself make the person liable (§ 33.004(i)).
Section 33.004 sets the procedure. The defendant asks for leave to designate no later than the 60th day before trial, absent good cause. The court must grant leave unless another party objects within 15 days of service and then shows the defendant pleaded too few facts even after a chance to replead. After adequate discovery, a party may move to strike the designation for lack of evidence, and the court grants that motion unless the defendant raises a genuine fact issue. Another subsection lets a defendant who alleges, within 60 days after its original answer, that an unknown person committed a crime that caused the loss ask to designate “Jane Doe” or “John Doe.”
A defense that names an unknown driver, a contractor or a parts maker is trying to move points away from itself. For a plaintiff, the task is to test each designation in discovery and, where the proof is thin, move to strike it. Claims involving the vehicle itself are described on our defective vehicle products page.
When is one defendant liable for the whole judgment?
Ordinarily each liable defendant pays only its own percentage. Section 33.013(b) makes a defendant answerable for the whole recoverable amount, jointly with others, when its own share tops 50 percent, or when it acted in concert with specific intent to do harm in conduct the subsection lists.
So the 50 percent line cuts both ways: a claimant above it takes nothing, and a defendant above it can be made to answer for the full recoverable sum, with a contribution right against the other liable defendants (§ 33.015). The concert-of-action route requires proof of specific intent to do harm, which § 33.013(e) ties to a conscious effort to cause substantial harm. Ordinary carelessness does not meet it. When a commercial truck and a car share blame, the percentages can decide who carries the judgment; see the parties a trucking claim can reach.
Can not wearing a seat belt reduce your recovery?
Yes, if the defense can show that not wearing it caused or contributed to your injuries. Texas Supreme Court, 2015: “relevant evidence of use or nonuse of seat belts is admissible for the purpose of apportioning responsibility in civil lawsuits.” The evidence is relevant only if non-use helped cause the injuries.
For more than forty years the court had barred the evidence. In Nabors Well Services, Ltd. v. Romero (No. 13-0136, decided February 13, 2015), the court overruled that rule. The crash was on U.S. Highway 285 in West Texas, where a transport truck clipped a Suburban carrying eight people; the jury found the truck company 51 percent and the Suburban’s driver 49 percent responsible and awarded just over $2.3 million. The trial court had excluded all evidence of non-use under the old rule. Because the proportionate-responsibility statute focuses on who caused the plaintiff’s injuries, not only who caused the crash, “most would say a plaintiff who breaks the law or otherwise acts negligently by not using a seat belt is at least partially responsible for the harm that befalls him,” so long as the failure “exacerbated his injuries.” You can read the opinion on the Texas Supreme Court’s site (read 16 October 2026).
The court did not make belt evidence automatic. The defendant “can establish the relevance of seat-belt nonuse only with evidence that nonuse caused or contributed to cause the plaintiff’s injuries,” the trial court first considers that evidence outside the jury’s presence, and expert testimony will often, but not always, be needed to establish relevance. It also separated this from the duty to mitigate: a plaintiff’s failure to mitigate after the crash reduces damages and is not part of the percentage question.
The belt law itself is Transportation Code § 545.413: a person at least 15 years old riding in a seat equipped with a belt commits an offense by not being secured, a misdemeanor with a fine of $25 to $50, and a driver who allows a child under 17 (one not required to be in a child safety seat) to ride unsecured faces a fine of $100 to $200. Non-use is not rare. In its 2024 crash facts, TxDOT reported that 45.34 percent of persons killed in vehicles where restraint use was applicable and known were reported as not restrained when the fatal crash occurred. Police often note belt use at the scene: after a single-vehicle crash on the South Loop feeder road near Holmes, reported on 6 March 2022, a Houston police sergeant said, as ABC13 reported, that the woman, who was not belted and was partially ejected, would not have died had she been wearing a seat belt. That crash involved no second driver, so chapter 33 never came into play, but it shows the kind of observation officers make. For children, Nabors adds that the jury may apportion responsibility to the person the law charges with restraining the child.
The Houston Chronicle, in an article dated October 16, 2026, reported that the 14th Court of Appeals on October 1 let a widow’s lawsuit against the City of Houston go forward after her husband fell and died while trying to flag down a city garbage truck in March 2024. The ruling did not decide whether the city is liable; the article quoted a Houston lawyer explaining that under Texas’ proportionate-responsibility rules a jury could still assign a share of fault to the husband, and that a share above 50 percent would mean no recovery.
How is fault proved after a Houston crash?
With evidence gathered before it disappears: the official crash report, photographs of the vehicles and the scene, witness names, and records from the vehicles and the drivers. A lawyer’s job is to turn those into an account that holds up when the other side argues you share the blame.
Start with what is easy to lose. Our guides explain how to get the crash report, which photographs matter most and why witnesses change the outcome. The sequence of the collision often decides fault by itself: who had the right of way in an intersection, as in a side-impact crash, and whether a driver was looking at a phone, covered in our pages on distracted driving accidents and the Texas texting law.
When the defense alleges that you contributed, the questions become specific. How fast were you traveling? Were you in the correct lane? Did you brake? Could you have avoided the impact? Each answer is either supported by evidence or it is not, and § 33.003(b) means the jury should not be asked about conduct nobody can support. That is the same reason a statement to an adjuster carries risk: an offhand “I didn’t see him” can later be quoted as an admission. We explain how to handle that call in the risks of an early adjuster call, and how insurers use fault arguments in common insurer strategies. Nothing in chapter 33 lets an adjuster decide your share; before suit the adjuster’s number is only leverage. The first steps after a crash are in the checklist for the first hours after a collision, hit-and-run cases in hit-and-run crashes in Houston, and intoxicated drivers in our drunk driving victims and dram shop pages. Families who lost someone can start with wrongful death, and the filing deadline is in filing a lawsuit after a Texas crash.
How does Maida Law Firm handle a shared-fault fight?
Maida Law Firm is a Houston personal injury firm, and a shared-fault dispute turns on evidence: the crash report, photographs, witness names, medical records and any insurer letters. Bringing those to a first review lets a lawyer test each fault allegation against what can be proved.
See the attorney page for who reviews a file, the car accident and personal injury pages for the claim types, and what an accident lawyer costs before hiring one. Questions about a fault allegation in your own claim can go through the contact page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 51 percent rule in Texas?
It is the common name for Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.001. A claimant found more than half responsible takes nothing, so 51 percent bars the claim. At 50 percent or less the claimant recovers, reduced by his own share.
If I am found 50 percent at fault, do I recover anything?
Yes. The bar applies only above 50 percent, so a claimant found exactly 50 percent responsible is not barred. The court then reduces the damages by 50 percent under § 33.012(a), and by any settlement amounts under § 33.012(b).
Does Texas use comparative negligence for product liability claims?
Chapter 33 applies to any tort cause of action in which a defendant, settling person or responsible third party is found responsible for a percentage of the harm, and the percentage definition includes harm caused by a defective or unreasonably dangerous product. So the same percentage system applies.
Does chapter 33 apply to workers’ compensation benefits?
No. Section 33.002(c)(1) says the chapter does not apply to an action to collect workers’ compensation benefits under the state’s workers’ compensation laws. A separate lawsuit against a third party is analyzed on its own facts, so ask an attorney about your situation.
Who decides my percentage of fault, the adjuster or a jury?
In a lawsuit the statute assigns the task to the trier of fact, which is the jury unless the parties try the case to a judge. Before a suit, an adjuster’s estimate is only a negotiating position and does not bind you.
Does a settlement with one driver reduce what I can get from another?
It can. After your percentage is subtracted, § 33.012(b) makes the court deduct what other persons paid in settlement from what remains. Have an attorney review any release before you sign it, because the amount paid affects the final calculation.
Can the other driver’s insurer say I was at fault without proving it?
An insurer can say anything in negotiation, but a jury question on your conduct requires sufficient evidence to support it under § 33.003(b). The practical protection is a complete record: the crash report, photographs and witness accounts gathered before memories fade.
About the authors
Sam A. Maida, Jr.
Owner and Managing Attorney
Sam A. Maida, Jr. has represented injured Texans in the greater Houston area since the firm opened in 1993.
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Bernard G. Johnson III
Litigation Managing Attorney
Bernard G. Johnson III is a board certified trial lawyer licensed in Texas since 1996 and a graduate of South Texas College of Law.