Claims When a Repossession Turns Into a Collision

Attorney Answer

Yes, and more than one claim. Ramming an occupied car is not repossession, and the arrests point at conduct the law treats as assault rather than as a lawful self-help remedy. Whether the lender was entitled to take the vehicle back is a separate question, and it is not a defense to hitting people with a wrecker.

Two tracks are running at once and they do not depend on each other. The criminal case belongs to the State, and the arrests are its business, not yours to control. Tex. Penal Code § 22.01(a)(1) makes it an offense to intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly cause bodily injury to another. Subsection (a)(2) reaches intentionally or knowingly threatening another with imminent bodily injury, and (a)(3) reaches intentionally or knowingly causing physical contact another will regard as offensive or provocative. Those describe what you say happened. But a conviction is not what pays for your injuries, and an acquittal would not end your civil case.

Your civil claims are separate and they are yours. Deliberately driving a wrecker into an occupied vehicle, chasing it, and striking a person supports claims for the bodily injuries to you and to your wife and for the damage to the vehicle. Texas apportions responsibility by percentage: Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.003 has the trier of fact assign a percentage to each claimant, defendant, settling person and designated responsible third party; § 33.012(a) reduces a claimant's damages by the claimant's own percentage; and § 33.001 bars recovery entirely for a claimant more than 50 percent responsible. Section 33.013(a) makes each liable defendant responsible only for its own percentage, but § 33.013(b) restores joint and several liability where a defendant's share exceeds 50 percent or where the defendant acted in concert with another with specific intent to do harm in committing certain listed Penal Code offenses. With more than one driver involved, that allocation is where the case is won.

The company behind the driver usually matters more than the driver. Texas asks two questions about that: whether the person was the company's employee, and whether he was acting in the course and scope of that employment when it happened. The Texas Supreme Court set out that two-step inquiry in Painter v. Amerimex Drilling I, Ltd., 561 S.W.3d 125 (Tex. 2018), holding that the ordinary rule excluding an employee's travel gives way when the employer directed the task the employee was performing. Painter is not about repossession, and whether deliberate acts fall inside the scope of employment is its own contested question — but the framework is how a claim reaches the towing company, the repossession agency, or the lender who hired them, and those are the parties likely to carry insurance.

Separately, Texas law limits self-help repossession. A repossession may not be carried out in a way that breaches the peace, and the statute drawing that line is not one this page is permitted to set out. Ask a lawyer to apply it, because it can reach the lender directly.

What you can do

1. Get medical care for yourself and your wife and keep going. Adrenaline hides injuries and untreated injuries are treated as minor ones.

2. Keep the vehicle exactly as it is and do not repair it yet. The pattern of damage — front left, then the rear impacts — is evidence of what happened.

3. Preserve what already exists: photographs and video already on your phones, the damaged vehicle, the loan and repossession paperwork, and any towing company or agency name, phone number or business card you were given.

4. Request the incident and crash reports from the responding agency's records division and ask for the case numbers from the arrests.

5. Do not discuss the loan, the default or the repossession with the lender, the towing company, or any insurer, and do not write out an account for them.

6. Take it to a Texas personal injury attorney promptly, and tell them at the first call that arrests were made and that a repossession was underway.

*Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts — starting with who the wrecker driver actually worked for — is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.*

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) generally gives two years from the day the cause of action accrues for both personal injury and property damage. The criminal case runs on its own separate schedule that this page does not set. When your clock started depends on your facts, so have a Texas attorney review the dates now rather than waiting for the criminal case to finish.