The jury deciding your compensation may never hear the trucking company’s safety record.
San Antonio sits on the busiest freight artery in the United States. I-35 runs north out of Laredo — the largest inland port on the US–Mexico border — straight through Bexar County. I-10 crosses it east to west. I-37 carries Eagle Ford Shale energy traffic up from the south.
Then Texas rewrote trucking litigation. House Bill 19 lets a commercial vehicle defendant force a two-phase trial, and if the motion is timely the judge has no discretion to refuse it. A San Antonio case filed today has to be built very differently from one filed five years ago.
HB 19: the single biggest change in Texas trucking law
Signed on 16 June 2021 and effective for suits filed on or after 1 September 2021, House Bill 19 created Chapter 72, Subchapter B of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code.
What it does
A defendant in a commercial motor vehicle collision case may move to bifurcate the trial into two phases. If the motion is timely, the court shall grant it — the judge has no discretion to refuse.
The motion must be filed by the later of the 120th day after the defendant files its original answer, or the 30th day after a claimant pleads a new claim against that defendant.
| Phase | What the jury decides |
|---|---|
| Phase One | Liability of the driver, and compensatory damages |
| Phase Two | Exemplary (punitive) damages — reached only if phase one goes against the driver |
Why it matters so much
Before HB 19, a plaintiff could put the whole story in front of one jury at one time: this driver ran out of hours, and this carrier hired him despite three prior violations, and it ignored the maintenance reports, and dispatch pressured him to keep driving.
HB 19 severs that narrative. Claims against the company that depend on a finding of driver negligence — negligent hiring, training, supervision, retention, entrustment — are generally pushed out of phase one. In effect, the jury deciding whether you are compensated may never hear the carrier’s safety record.
The defendant must move for bifurcation by the later of the 120th day after filing its original answer, or the 30th day after you plead a new claim against it. That is a deadline running inside your lawsuit, long before trial — and it is why the theories in your original petition matter so much.
The gaps that remain open
HB 19 is not a wall, and knowing where it is porous is most of the skill in a modern Texas trucking case.
- Direct claims that do not require a finding of driver negligence stay in phase one — negligent maintenance is the clearest example, since a brake failure is the company’s fault whether or not the driver did anything wrong.
- Regulatory violations are admissible in phase one where the evidence tends to prove the failure was a proximate cause of the injury or death and the regulation is specific to that defendant. This is the doorway through which much of the safety story can still be walked, if counsel builds the case around it.
- Employer liability still follows from a phase-one finding against the driver, through respondeat superior.
The practical consequence: a San Antonio 18-wheeler case must now be constructed from the outset around independent, non-derivative theories of company fault and specific regulatory breaches. Filing a conventional negligence petition and hoping to tell the whole story at trial is a strategy that stopped working in 2021.
Ask any firm you interview a direct question: how do you build a case around HB 19? If the answer is vague, keep looking.
The Texas rules that frame everything else
Two years to file
Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003, a personal injury or wrongful death suit must be filed within two years of the incident or death.
If a governmental unit is involved — a City of San Antonio vehicle, VIA Metropolitan Transit, a TxDOT contractor — the Texas Tort Claims Act applies, requiring formal notice within six months, and San Antonio’s own charter imposes a shorter local notice period still. Those clocks run in months, not years.
The 51% bar
Texas applies proportionate responsibility under Chapter 33. If your responsibility is found to be greater than 50%, you recover nothing. At 50% or below, your damages are reduced by your percentage.
The same cliff exists in Oklahoma, while Tennessee uses a slightly stricter 50% bar — one of many reasons a guide written for another state can quietly mislead you.
“Paid or incurred”
Under § 41.0105, recovery of medical expenses is limited to amounts actually paid or incurred — not the sticker price on the hospital chargemaster. Texas medical billing evidence is therefore a technical fight of its own, and it directly determines the economic damages figure your non-economic damages are argued against.
The evidence problem, and why it is worse in a border corridor
Everything in our Oklahoma trucking guide about federal retention periods applies with equal force in Texas: driver logs and supporting documents need be kept only six months under 49 CFR 395.8, DVIRs three months.
The I-35 corridor adds a layer. A significant share of the trucks on the Laredo–San Antonio run are engaged in cross-border freight, which introduces:
- Carriers domiciled in Mexico, raising service, jurisdiction and enforcement-of-judgment questions;
- Drayage and transloading operations where a single load passes through several companies between the border and its destination, and each hand-off is a potential defendant and a potential gap in the paper trail;
- Freight brokers and 3PLs selecting carriers on price, which raises negligent-selection questions where a carrier’s FMCSA safety record was already poor;
- Owner-operators leased to a carrier, where the lease agreement and the placard on the door determine who is on the hook.
Identifying the correct defendants here is genuinely difficult and genuinely urgent. A preservation letter must go to every entity in the chain within days, because a company nobody has identified is a company nobody has told to keep its records.
Available insurance
Interstate carriers must maintain minimum public liability coverage under 49 CFR 387.9: $750,000 for general freight, $1,000,000 for oil, and $5,000,000 for certain hazardous materials. Eagle Ford energy traffic through south Bexar County frequently falls into the higher tiers.
Most substantial fleets carry primary coverage plus excess layers, and the MCS-90 endorsement on a federally required policy can, in defined circumstances, obligate an insurer to satisfy a judgment even where a coverage defence would otherwise apply. Finding every layer is a core part of the work.
Bexar County practice
Suits are filed in the Bexar County district courts, whose civil dockets are among the busiest in Texas. Two local realities are worth understanding:
Venue and removal. Out-of-state carriers routinely attempt removal to the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division. Federal court changes the jury pool, the scheduling order and the discovery rhythm. Whether your lawyer is comfortable in both matters.
Rapid response. Major carriers and their insurers dispatch investigators to serious I-35 and I-10 crashes within hours — sometimes before the wreckage is cleared. They photograph, measure, download the ECM, and interview witnesses while your family is still at University Hospital. The evidentiary imbalance in the first 48 hours is enormous, and it is why the single most valuable thing an injured person can do is get counsel engaged fast.
After an 18-wheeler crash in San Antonio
Your first week after an I-35 truck crash
The carrier’s investigators may already be working. This is how you stop starting from behind.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to file an 18-wheeler lawsuit in San Antonio?
Two years from the crash under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003. If a governmental entity is involved, the Texas Tort Claims Act requires notice within six months, and the City of San Antonio’s charter imposes a shorter period.
What is HB 19 and how does it affect my case?
HB 19, effective 1 September 2021, lets a commercial vehicle defendant force a two-phase trial. Phase one covers driver liability and compensatory damages; phase two covers exemplary damages. It largely keeps the carrier’s hiring and supervision record out of the phase in which your compensation is decided, so cases must now be built around direct company negligence and specific regulatory violations.
Can the trucking company’s safety record still be used?
Sometimes. Evidence that a defendant violated a regulation specific to it is admissible in phase one where it tends to prove the violation proximately caused the injury or death. Claims not requiring a finding of driver negligence, such as negligent maintenance, also remain in phase one.
What if I was partly at fault?
Texas proportionate responsibility under Chapter 33 bars recovery if your responsibility exceeds 50%. At 50% or below, damages are reduced by your percentage.
How much insurance does an 18-wheeler carry?
Federal minimums under 49 CFR 387.9 are $750,000 for general freight, $1 million for oil, and $5 million for certain hazardous materials. Large fleets typically carry substantially more through excess layers.
What is the “paid or incurred” rule and why does it matter?
Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.0105, recovery of medical expenses is limited to amounts actually paid or incurred, rather than the amount originally billed. It makes medical billing evidence a technical fight in its own right and directly shapes the economic damages figure in your case.
What happens if the truck was operated by a carrier based in Mexico?
Cross-border freight on the Laredo–San Antonio corridor raises questions of service of process, personal jurisdiction and enforcement of any judgment, alongside the usual analysis of brokers, shippers and owner-operators in the chain. These are answerable, but they need to be identified early.
The bottom line
San Antonio 18-wheeler cases run on three clocks: two years to file, six months before the driver’s logs may lawfully vanish, and 120 days after the answer for the defence to force a two-phase trial.
HB 19 did not make these cases unwinnable. It made them cases that have to be built correctly from week one, around direct company negligence and specific regulatory breaches rather than a single sweeping narrative delivered at trial.
That is a strategy decision made long before anyone sees a courtroom — which is why, on the I-35 corridor, how fast you get competent counsel is not a detail. It is most of the case.
This article is general information about Texas and federal law, not legal advice, and no attorney–client relationship is created by reading it. Statutes, regulations and their interpretation change. Verify against current law and consult an attorney licensed in Texas. See our Disclaimer and Editorial Policy.