Civil Liability After a Rear-End Crash With No Ticket Issued

Attorney Answer

No ticket does not mean no liability. Whether an officer wrote a citation has nothing to do with whether the injured person can sue you and recover, and a case number simply means the crash was documented. Assume a claim is coming and protect yourself accordingly.

A traffic citation is a criminal or administrative matter between the driver and the state. Civil responsibility for injuries is decided separately, by a jury or by an insurance adjuster applying the same standards, based on the evidence of what happened. Officers decline to write citations for all sorts of reasons — no independent witness, conflicting accounts, no injury apparent at the scene — none of which resolves fault.

Texas allocates fault by percentage. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001 bars a claimant from recovering damages if the claimant's own percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent. Below that threshold, the claimant's recovery is reduced in proportion to their share. The percentages themselves are found by the trier of fact. Practically, that means two things for you. If the other driver was partly responsible — an unlit brake light, a sudden unnecessary stop, cutting in — that reduces what they can recover, and if their share exceeds 50 percent they recover nothing. But being the rear driver is where most of the fault usually lands in these cases, so do not build your expectations on that.

Your real exposure is financial, and it is set by your liability limits. If the injury turns out to be significant and your bodily injury limits are low, the difference can be claimed against you personally. That is the number to find out today.

What you can do

1. Report the crash to your own liability insurer immediately if you have not. Late notice can jeopardize your own coverage, which is the worst possible outcome here. 2. Pull up your declarations page and find your bodily injury liability limits per person and per accident. Check whether you have an umbrella policy. 3. Give your statement to your own insurer and its adjuster. Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer or to a lawyer representing them — refer them to your carrier, which is what you pay it for. 4. Do not text, email, or post anything that discusses fault or apologizes. Those statements surface later. 5. Order the crash report using the case number the officer gave you and read what was recorded — contributing factors, statements attributed to each driver, and any injury notation. 6. Write down now, while it is fresh, what you observed: speed, distance, road and light conditions, whether the vehicle ahead braked suddenly, whether its brake lights worked, any passenger observations. Keep it for your insurer and any lawyer they assign. 7. Get yourself and any passenger medically evaluated even if you feel fine. 8. If you are served with a lawsuit, forward it to your insurer the same day and do not wait.