Kerrville Personal Injury Lawyers
Our founder, Joseph R. Echavarria, is a former Bexar County prosecutor who has handled injury claims since 2007 and recovered tens of millions of dollars for injured Texans and their families in the Hill Country.
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A personal injury claim is a case you bring when another party’s carelessness hurts you, and it works because the law makes that party pay what the injury costs, from the ambulance ride to the work you can no longer do.
If you were hurt in Kerr County, you may pursue medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and lost earning capacity.
Serving all of Kerrville and Kerr County and every stretch of I-10, Sidney Baker Street and Junction Highway in between. Our aggressive Kerrville personal injury attorneys are ready to take your case to trial. A trial-tested team beside you, no matter the size of your claim.
Clients rate us 5.0 stars across 350+ Google reviews. When you call, you speak with a personal injury attorney, not a call center, in English or Spanish.
Kerrville families can call (210) 272-0101 or use our secure online contact form for a free case review. You Pay Nothing Unless You Win
What steps protect your claim after a Kerr County crash?
Three things protect your claim most: a same-day medical exam, an official crash report, and no insurance statements until you have talked to a lawyer. The full checklist:
- Get checked at the Peterson Regional Medical Center emergency room or by your own doctor, even if you feel fine.
- Call 911 so the Kerrville Police Department, Kerr County Sheriff’s Office, or a state trooper documents what happened.
- Photograph the scene, vehicles, and injuries, and get witness names and phone numbers.
- Politely decline any recorded statement the other driver’s insurer requests.
- Call us before you sign anything, cash a check, or post about the crash online.
Once you call us, we request your official crash report (Form CR-3), collect photos and witness statements, and send preservation letters for dash-cam video, store security footage, and vehicle black-box data. In 18-wheeler and commercial truck claims, we also demand the driver’s electronic logging device (ELD) records and driver qualification file. Early contact also lets us schedule treatment close to home before a gap in care hurts your claim.
Who pays the ambulance and hospital bills after a Kerr County crash?
Your own PIP and health coverage usually pay first, and the at-fault driver’s insurer pays for those same medical expenses later, as part of your settlement. Knowing who pays when matters, because a serious crash here often means an ambulance to Peterson Regional Medical Center and then a transfer, sometimes by helicopter, to a Level I trauma center in San Antonio such as University Hospital or Brooke Army Medical Center.
- Personal injury protection (PIP). Every Texas auto policy includes at least $2,500 in PIP unless you rejected it in writing, and it pays medical bills and lost wages regardless of fault. You do not have to repay PIP benefits from your settlement.
- Your health plan. It pays under its normal terms and then seeks repayment from your settlement.
- Hospital liens. If you were admitted within 72 hours of the crash, the hospital holds a lien on your injury claim, not on your home or property. The lien covers only reasonable and regular charges, and it is limited to the lesser of the charges for the first 100 days of your stay or half of your recovery (Tex. Prop. Code §§ 55.002, 55.004).
- Ambulance liens. In counties with 800,000 or fewer residents, including Kerr County, an emergency medical services provider can also claim a lien, capped at $1,000.
- Air ambulance bills. If you have a group or individual health plan, the federal No Surprises Act limits what you owe for a covered out-of-network air ambulance flight to your in-network cost-sharing. Ground ambulances are not included.
We check every lien for errors, unrelated charges, and rates above what the law allows before a dollar leaves your settlement.
How do Medicare, VA, or TRICARE benefits affect your settlement?
They create repayment claims against your recovery, so the settlement has to account for them before the money is divided. That affects many Kerrville clients, because Kerr County is home to many retirees and veterans and to the Kerrville VA Medical Center on Memorial Boulevard.
- Medicare makes “conditional payments” for crash-related care, and federal law requires those payments to be repaid from a liability settlement or judgment (42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b)(2)).
- VA care for an injury that is not service-connected, and care paid for through TRICARE or provided at a military treatment facility, can be recovered by the United States from the at-fault party under the Federal Medical Care Recovery Act (42 U.S.C. § 2651).
These claims are negotiable. We request each program’s itemized list of payments, challenge charges unrelated to the crash, and push for reductions. Medicare, for example, reduces its recovery by a share of the fees and costs spent winning the settlement.
Who is responsible when an RV or travel trailer causes a crash?
The driver of the RV, or of the vehicle towing the trailer, is responsible first, and the owner, a rental company, or the maker of a failed hitch or trailer part can share the blame. RVs and travel trailers headed to Guadalupe River parks share SH 39, Junction Highway, and I-10 with local traffic, especially in summer, and many are driven by people who rarely handle a vehicle that size.
A loaded travel trailer lengthens stopping distance, swings wide on turns, and can sway at highway speed. Texas requires approved safety chains between a passenger car or light truck and the trailer it pulls (Tex. Transp. Code § 545.410), so a trailer that breaks loose without them points to negligence. The tow vehicle’s liability policy usually extends to the trailer it is pulling, and a rental company that hands over an RV with worn brakes or tires answers for its own negligence.
If the driver was working, an employer can be responsible too, and a bar that served an obviously intoxicated driver can share liability under the dram shop law (Tex. Alco. Bev. Code § 2.02).
What if a defective part made my injuries worse?
The manufacturer can owe you for the added harm. A crashworthiness claim argues that a seat belt, airbag, or roof that failed turned a survivable collision into a catastrophic one.
How JRE Injury Law fights for injured Hill Country families
We come to you, prepare every claim for trial in Kerr County’s district courts, and keep your attorney and a named case manager within reach from start to finish. We are based in nearby San Antonio and represent Kerrville residents across Kerr County, meeting you at home, at work, or in a hospital bed, even after a transfer to a larger trauma center.
Mr. Echavarria learned as a prosecutor how evidence holds up in court, and we build every claim to be ready for Kerr County’s 198th or 216th District Court if an insurer refuses to pay fairly.
Ethan L. Shaw, Of Counsel to JRE Injury Law is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and he won about $70 million in Tate v. Discover Property & Casualty, tried with co-counsel Tom Rhodes in the 225th District Court in Bexar County, against an insurer that wrongfully denied an injured worker’s benefits. His firm has also obtained a $400,000 judgment in a personal injury case and a $375,000 verdict that survived appeal, and Jorge Mares, Of Counsel to JRE Injury Law, settled a T-bone case for $2.25 million with co-counsel David Fuentes. Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome. Every case is different and depends on its own facts.
You pay no attorney’s fee unless we recover money for you: Pay Nothing Unless You Win. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome; every case depends on its facts.
Talk to an Attorney Today: call (210) 272-0101 or contact us here for a Free Case Review of your Kerrville injury claim.
Where do serious injuries happen in Kerrville and Kerr County?
Serious crashes in Kerrville tend to cluster where traffic concentrates:
- I-10, including the interchanges at Sidney Baker Street (SH 16) and Harper Road (RM 783)
- Sidney Baker Street between I-10 and downtown, where shopping-center driveways feed heavy traffic
- Junction Highway (SH 27) toward Ingram, and Memorial Boulevard (SH 27) past Schreiner University toward Center Point
- Loop 534 (Veterans Highway) and Bandera Highway (SH 173) toward Camp Verde
- SH 39 along the Guadalupe River through Hunt
- Water Street and Main Street downtown, plus the river crossings near Louise Hays Park
- School zones around Tivy High School on Loop 534 during drop-off and pickup
How do paid medical bills affect what your Kerrville case is worth?
They set the ceiling on the medical-bill part of your case, because Texas limits that recovery to the amount actually paid or incurred. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.0105, as the Texas Supreme Court applied it in Haygood v. De Escabedo, 356 S.W.3d 390 (Tex. 2011), you recover the amount a provider has a legal right to be paid, not the full sticker price on the bill.
That rule changes the math for clients whose care was paid by Medicare, the VA, or a health plan at a discounted rate. It does not touch the rest of the claim: pain, mental anguish, physical impairment, disfigurement, and lost earning capacity are valued on their own evidence, and the total is reduced only by any share of fault assigned to you.
Coverage still limits what can be collected. Texas drivers must carry only $30,000 in bodily injury coverage per person (Tex. Transp. Code § 601.072), so we look for commercial policies, your own underinsured motorist coverage, and every other responsible party.
When a family loses someone, a wrongful death claim belongs to the surviving spouse, children, and parents (§ 71.004), and the estate’s own injury claim survives under § 71.021.
Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome; every case depends on its facts.
Questions about your injury case? Call (210) 272-0101 or send us your details for a Free Case Review in Kerrville.
What is the filing deadline for a Kerr County injury claim?
You generally have two years from the date of injury to file suit under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003, and two years from the date of death for a wrongful death claim. The clock usually pauses for a child until age 18, and the discovery rule can delay it in rare cases.
A government vehicle moves the first deadline much sooner. The Tort Claims Act requires written notice to the governmental unit within six months (§ 101.101), and a city charter can set an even shorter deadline, so we check the City of Kerrville’s rules on day one. Evidence expires sooner still, since many businesses record over camera footage within days.
What causes most serious injury accidents in the Hill Country?
Traffic crashes are the most common source of serious injury claims, and rural roads carry outsized risk. TxDOT’s 2025 Crash Facts report counted 244,534 people injured statewide and found that just over half of all traffic deaths happened in rural areas.
Common causes include:
- Distracted driving, such as texting in stop-and-go traffic on Sidney Baker Street
- Speeding and failure to control speed on I-10 and SH 16
- Drunk driving, which TxDOT tied to 906 deaths statewide in 2025
- Drivers who run a red light and T-bone another car
- Unsafe passing and head-on crashes on two-lane routes like SH 39 and SH 173
- Fatigued truck drivers on the I-10 freight corridor
- Livestock and deer on rural highways at dusk
- Defective tires, brakes, and airbags
Who is liable when livestock wander onto a highway?
The owner can be liable for knowingly letting horses, cattle, goats, or other livestock roam unattended on a U.S. or state highway, which Tex. Agric. Code § 143.102 prohibits. The rule excludes numbered farm-to-market roads, so the crash location matters.
What if the crash made an old injury or condition worse?
You can recover for the worsening. Texas jury instructions exclude damages for a condition that existed before the crash, except to the extent the crash aggravated it, so the claim turns on proving what changed.
Insurers often point to arthritis, degenerative discs, a prior back surgery, or an old shoulder injury to shrink a claim, especially when the injured person is older. We answer with records: prior imaging and treatment notes compared with post-crash scans, and treating doctors who explain how a stable condition became painful or disabling. A person who had no symptoms before the crash and constant pain after it presents a strong aggravation claim. Older adults also face a higher risk of hip and wrist fractures and brain bleeds in crashes a younger person might walk away from.
Texas treats physical impairment, meaning the loss of activities you once enjoyed, as its own element of damages, separate from pain. For a retiree who can no longer garden, fish the Guadalupe, or travel, that loss is often the heart of the case. We schedule the imaging, specialists, and therapy that document it.
Which crash, product, and dog bite cases do we take in Kerr County?
We take crash, product-defect, and dog bite claims, and commercial vehicle cases come first. They include:
- Big-rig crashes on Interstate 10, where long-haul freight crosses Kerr County
- Collisions with company pickups, work trucks, ranch trailers, and delivery vans
- Car and pickup crashes on city streets and rural highways
- Motorcycle injuries on SH 16, SH 39, and other winding Hill Country roads
- Bicycle crashes and pedestrian injuries near the River Trail and downtown
- RV and travel-trailer collisions on routes to Guadalupe River parks
- Uber and Lyft crashes, whether you were a rider or in another vehicle
- Defective product injuries from failed tires, airbags, and seat belts
- Dog bites, where an owner who knew the dog was dangerous is strictly liable under Marshall v. Ranne, 511 S.W.2d 255 (Tex. 1974), and other owners can be liable for negligence
Talk to an Attorney Today in Kerrville
In most cases, the two-year filing clock started the day you were hurt, and evidence fades faster. Call JRE Injury Law, your Kerrville personal injury lawyers, at (210) 272-0101 or toll-free at (844) 702-0350, 24/7, or request your Free Case Review. Pay Nothing Unless You Win.
