The Ashmore Law Firm, P.C. represents people and families across Dallas and North Texas who are facing serious, catastrophic, and life-altering injuries. Our injury practice is focused on serious, catastrophic, and life-altering cases — not routine minor-injury claims. We focus on injuries that change the rest of a person's life — traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries and paralysis, amputations, severe burns, permanent disability, and wrongful death — and the complex litigation those cases require.
The examples on this page are illustrative scenarios, not descriptions of specific cases The Ashmore Law Firm, P.C. has handled and not promises of any result. Every case depends on its own facts, evidence, injuries, insurance coverage, and applicable law.
What is a serious or catastrophic injury case?
A catastrophic injury is one that permanently changes mobility, independence, the ability to work, cognition, family life, or life expectancy. These are not cases that resolve with a short course of treatment; they involve long-term or lifelong medical care, lost earning capacity, and a restructured future for the injured person and their family. Common examples include traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury and paralysis, loss of a limb, severe burns, organ damage, vision loss, and injuries that shorten life expectancy.
What types of catastrophic injury cases does The Ashmore Law Firm, P.C. handle?
Our personal injury practice centers on serious-injury claims, each of which routinely produces life-altering harm:
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Serious car accident injuries
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Catastrophic truck accident injuries
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Medical malpractice injuries
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Defective and dangerous products (products liability)
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Wrongful death and survival claims
Serious car accident injuries
Not every car wreck is a catastrophic injury case. We take the serious ones — high-speed collisions, crashes involving commercial vehicles, and wrecks that cause traumatic brain injury, spinal damage, broken bones requiring surgical reconstruction, or other permanent harm. These cases often involve disputed fault, layered insurance policies, and the need to prove future medical needs and lost earning capacity, not just the initial hospital bill.
Illustrative example: Consider a driver rear-ended at highway speed who walks away from the scene but develops worsening headaches, confusion, and memory loss over the following weeks — a delayed-onset traumatic brain injury an emergency room initially missed. The injury eventually prevents a return to a skilled profession. A case like this turns on medical imaging, neuropsychological testing, and expert opinion tying the cognitive decline to the collision, plus a careful projection of lost earning capacity and future care.
Catastrophic truck accidents
Commercial truck crashes tend to cause catastrophic injuries because of the size and weight disparity between a tractor-trailer and a passenger vehicle. These cases are also more complex because they involve a commercial carrier, its driver, and often multiple layers of regulation, insurance, and corporate responsibility.
What makes truck cases different is the evidence. Early preservation is critical: driver hours-of-service logs, electronic logging device (ELD) and engine control module ("black box") data, vehicle maintenance and inspection records, drug and alcohol testing results, the carrier's hiring and training files, and company safety policies. Much of this can be lost or overwritten quickly if it is not preserved promptly.
Illustrative example: Imagine a passenger car stopped in highway traffic when a fully loaded tractor-trailer fails to brake in time. The collision leaves the passenger with a spinal cord injury and partial paralysis. The central questions become whether the driver had been operating beyond legal hours-of-service limits, whether the carrier's braking system had been properly maintained, and whether company policies encouraged unsafe schedules — questions answered by ELD data, maintenance records, and internal company documents that must be secured early.
Medical malpractice injuries
Medical malpractice cases involve harm caused when a health care provider fails to meet the applicable standard of care — surgical errors, delayed or missed diagnosis, medication errors, birth injuries, anesthesia errors, and failures in hospital systems. We handle the malpractice cases that result in serious, permanent, or life-ending harm.
These claims are governed by Chapter 74 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, which sets special procedural and expert requirements. Texas also limits noneconomic damages in health care liability claims: under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 74.301, noneconomic damages are generally capped at $250,000 per claimant against all defendant physicians and health care providers other than health care institutions, with additional caps for health care institutions — $250,000 for one institution and $500,000 aggregate for multiple institutions, creating a potential $750,000 maximum noneconomic cap depending on the defendants involved. These §74.301 noneconomic caps are not adjusted for inflation. In medical-malpractice wrongful death and survival claims, § 74.303 imposes a separate inflation-adjusted cap structure, with exceptions for necessary medical, hospital, and custodial care. Because Chapter 74 caps are technical and case-specific, the firm should verify how they apply to a particular claim.
Illustrative example: Consider a patient whose cancer diagnosis is delayed for many months because a suspicious finding on imaging was not followed up, allowing the disease to progress to a far more serious stage. A case like this depends on expert testimony from qualified physicians to establish the standard of care, the breach, and how the delay changed the outcome and prognosis — and on a careful life-care plan quantifying the additional treatment, lost earning capacity, and reduced life expectancy.
Defective and dangerous products
Products liability cases involve injuries caused by defective or unreasonably dangerous products — manufacturing defects, design defects, and failures to warn of known dangers. These cases can involve vehicles, industrial equipment, consumer products, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and more. Texas products liability law is governed by Chapter 82 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. These claims frequently require engineering and design experts, analysis of warnings and instructions, and — for design-defect claims — the safer-alternative-design analysis Texas law applies.
Illustrative example: Imagine a worker using a piece of industrial equipment that lacks a guard required on similar machines, whose hand is permanently injured when it is pulled into moving parts. The case may turn on whether a safer, economically feasible alternative design existed, whether warnings were adequate, and whether the manufacturer knew or should have known of the risk — questions answered through product testing, industry standards, and internal company documents.
Wrongful death and survival claims
When negligence causes a death, Texas law provides two related but distinct claims. A wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the person who died, and compensates the family for the losses they suffer — loss of companionship, emotional support, financial support, and the relationship itself. A survival claim belongs to the estate and covers the losses the injured person could have pursued had they lived — such as pain and suffering endured before death and final medical expenses. Wrongful death claims are governed by Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 71.002 and 71.004 (which sets the order of beneficiaries); survival claims by § 71.021.
Illustrative example: Consider a family that loses a primary wage-earner in a crash caused by a negligent driver. Beyond the grief, the family faces the loss of the income, benefits, and household contributions that person provided, and the estate may have claims for the person's final medical care and suffering. A case like this requires documenting both the economic structure the family relied on and the human relationships and support that were lost, so that the full impact on the survivors is clear.
How long do you have to file a serious injury case in Texas?
In most cases, two years. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a), a personal injury lawsuit generally must be filed within two years of the date the cause of action accrues. Claims for injury resulting in death — including wrongful death and survival claims — are also generally subject to a two-year deadline under § 16.003(b). Medical malpractice and certain other claims carry their own timing rules under Chapter 74, and some circumstances (such as injuries to a minor, or the discovery rule) can change when the clock starts or stops. Because deadlines and exceptions can be complex, it is important to confirm the deadline that applies to a specific situation as early as possible.
What if the insurance company says you were partly at fault?
Texas follows a modified comparative responsibility rule with a 51% bar. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001, a claimant may not recover any damages if their percentage of responsibility is greater than 50%. If the claimant is 50% or less responsible, their damages are reduced by their percentage of responsibility under § 33.012. A claimant found 30% at fault with $100,000 in damages could recover $70,000; a claimant found 51% at fault recovers nothing. Insurance adjusters often raise comparative fault to reduce or deny payment, which is why preserving evidence and developing the facts early matters.
What damages matter most in a catastrophic injury case?
In a catastrophic injury case, the largest losses are usually the long-term ones: future medical care and rehabilitation, surgeries and attendant care, home and vehicle modifications, lost earning capacity (often the largest single item), physical pain and mental anguish, physical impairment and disfigurement, and — in death cases — the loss of the relationship and financial support the person provided. Identifying and proving these requires life-care plans, vocational and economic experts, and medical opinion about future needs. The goal is to make sure any recovery reflects what the injury will actually cost over a lifetime, not just the bills to date.
Why choose The Ashmore Law Firm, P.C. for a catastrophic injury case?
Catastrophic injury cases are different from ordinary injury claims because the stakes, the damages, and the evidence are all more complex. We prepare every serious-injury case as if it may be necessary to take it to trial, because the credibility of that preparation is often what drives a fair resolution. We also bring something most personal injury firms cannot: as a firm that handles estate planning, probate, and estate administration, we can help families address the connected consequences of a catastrophic injury or death — decision-making and guardianship for an incapacitated loved one, the estate and probate questions that follow a wrongful death, and the long-term planning a life-changing injury requires. When an injury changes a life forever, the legal response has to reach as far as the consequences do.
Talk to a Dallas Serious Injury Attorney
If you or a family member has suffered a serious, catastrophic, or life-altering injury in Dallas or North Texas, talk with The Ashmore Law Firm, P.C. about your case.
