Proportionate Responsibility in Texas

Fact-checked against primary sources October 3, 2026

In Texas, the person bringing an injury claim can be assigned part of the blame, and that share decides two things: whether any recovery is allowed at all, and how far the award shrinks. Under section 33.001 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a claimant "may not recover damages" when the claimant's percentage of responsibility is "greater than 50 percent." At 50 percent or below, the damages are cut by the claimant's own percentage. Chapter 33 calls this system proportionate responsibility.

This page sets out who receives a percentage, how the reduction is calculated, what a prior settlement does to the numbers, and how the defendants who remain divide what is owed. It belongs to the North Texas disputes and settlements guides and sits within the injury and accident settlements section.

Which claims chapter 33 covers

Section 33.002(a) applies the chapter to two kinds of case. The first is any cause of action based on tort in which a defendant, settling person or responsible third party is found responsible for a percentage of the harm. The second is a claim under the Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act where the same kind of finding is made.

Section 33.002(c) carves out three categories the chapter does not reach:

an action to collect workers' compensation benefits, and an action against an employer for exemplary damages arising out of an employee's death;
a claim for exemplary damages, even inside a case the chapter otherwise governs; and
a cause of action for damages arising from the manufacture of methamphetamine as described by Chapter 99.

Who receives a percentage

The trier of fact assigns the percentages. Under section 33.003(a), it does this "as to each cause of action asserted," stated in whole numbers, for four groups: each claimant, each defendant, each settling person, and each responsible third party designated under section 33.004. A percentage can rest on a negligent act or omission, a defective or unreasonably dangerous product, other conduct that violates an applicable legal standard, or any combination. Section 33.003(b) adds that no question about a person's conduct goes to the jury without sufficient evidence to support it.

Section 33.011 defines the four groups:

Claimant: Anyone seeking damages, including a plaintiff, counterclaimant, cross-claimant or third-party plaintiff. When the damages are for harm to someone else, the injured or deceased person counts as a claimant too, alongside whoever is seeking recovery for that harm.
Defendant: Any person from whom a claimant seeks recovery at the time the case is submitted to the trier of fact.
Settling person: A person who has "paid or promised to pay money or anything of monetary value to a claimant in consideration of potential liability" for the harm.
Responsible third party: Any person alleged to have caused or contributed to the harm in any of the ways listed above, other than a seller eligible for indemnity under Section 82.002.

How a responsible third party gets named

Section 33.011(6) defines a responsible third party as any person alleged to have caused or contributed to causing the harm for which damages are sought. Section 33.004 sets the procedure for designating one. The defendant files a motion for leave to designate the person "on or before the 60th day before the trial date," unless the court finds good cause to allow a later filing. The court grants leave unless another party objects "on or before the 15th day after the date the motion is served." Even after a timely objection, the court still grants leave unless the objecting party shows the defendant failed to plead sufficient facts, both originally and after being allowed to replead.

Several limits apply:

A defendant that failed to make a timely disclosure under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure cannot designate a person after limitations on the claim against that person has expired (33.004(d)).
Designation, or a finding of fault against the designated person, does not by itself make that person liable, and cannot be used in another proceeding to impose liability (33.004(i)).
A defendant that alleges, within 60 days after filing its original answer, that an unknown person committed a criminal act causing the harm can designate that person as "Jane Doe" or "John Doe" if the conditions in 33.004(j) are met (33.004(j), (k)).
After adequate time for discovery, any party may move to strike a designation for lack of evidence, and the court grants the motion unless a defendant raises a genuine fact issue (33.004(l)).

The formula in three steps

Once the percentages and the total damages are found, the statute applies them in a fixed order.

The 50 percent bar. If the claimant's percentage is greater than 50, section 33.001 bars recovery. A claimant at exactly 50 is not above the line.
The percentage reduction. If the claimant is not barred, section 33.012(a) directs the court to reduce the damages "by a percentage equal to the claimant's percentage of responsibility."
The settlement credit. If the claimant has settled with anyone, section 33.012(b) directs a further reduction "by the sum of the dollar amounts of all settlements."

Two exceptions sit in the same section. In a health care liability claim under Chapter 74, the defendants may elect, in writing before submission, to have the settlement credit calculated from each settling person's percentage of responsibility instead of the dollar amounts. If no defendant elects, or the elections conflict, the dollar-amount method applies (33.012(c), (d)). And section 33.012 does not apply to workers' compensation benefits an employer paid to an employee (33.012(e)).

A worked illustration of the formula

This is an illustration of the statute's arithmetic only. The percentages are invented round numbers chosen to make the math easy to follow. They are not a case value, an estimate, or a prediction of what any jury would find.

The table below shows what sections 33.001 and 33.012(a) do to the damages found at three different claimant percentages, before any settlement credit.

Claimant's percentage	Barred by 33.001?	Reduction under 33.012(a)	Share of the damages found that remains
20 percent	No	20 percent	80 percent
50 percent	No	50 percent	50 percent
51 percent	Yes	None; recovery is barred	None

If the claimant in the first row had also settled with someone, step three would then subtract the dollar amount of every settlement from what remains (33.012(b)). The one-point gap between the 50 and 51 percent rows shows how sharply the bar operates: the arithmetic does not taper off, it stops.

How the remaining defendants share what is owed

Section 33.013(a) starts from several liability: a liable defendant owes only "the percentage of the damages found by the trier of fact equal to that defendant's percentage of responsibility." Section 33.013(b) then makes a defendant jointly and severally liable for the damages recoverable under section 33.012 in two situations:

its own percentage is "greater than 50 percent"; or
it acted with specific intent to do harm, in concert with another person, in conduct described in listed Penal Code provisions, among them murder, aggravated assault, sexual assault, forgery and commercial bribery. The claimant has to prove that specific intent (33.013(e)).

A jointly and severally liable defendant can end up paying more than its own share, and section 33.015 sorts that out among the defendants afterward. A jointly and severally liable defendant that pays more than its percentage has a right of contribution against the others for the overpayment. If a liable defendant does not pay its portion, the other jointly and severally liable defendants cover the shortfall in proportion to their own percentages (33.015(c)). One rule protects people who settle: "No defendant has a right of contribution against any settling person" (33.015(d)). Section 33.017 leaves rights of indemnity under a statute, contract or common law in place, and they prevail over chapter 33 if the two conflict.

Where these rules meet the rest of an injury claim

The stages of a car accident claim, from the crash report through settlement or suit, are laid out in a separate guide. When a commercial truck is involved, the guide to truck accident claims covers the federal carrier rules that apply to the companies behind it. The designation rules above refer to limitations (33.004(d)), and the deadline to sue for an injury covers the limitations rules that section refers to.

The same definitions reach death cases. In a wrongful death claim, the person who died is counted as a claimant (section 33.011(1)), so the trier of fact assigns that person a percentage under section 33.003. And uninsured motorist coverage protects insureds who are "legally entitled to recover" damages from the other driver (Insurance Code section 1952.101(a)); for underinsured coverage, section 1952.106 pays those amounts up to the policy limit. That phrase ties the coverage back to these rules on what one person can recover from another.

Chapter 33 describes how a court arrives at the damages a claimant recovers. The percentages it works from are the ones the trier of fact finds under section 33.003, not figures either side proposes.