What is HB4806? How This Affects Injury Victims in Texas
At Scott Callahan & Associates, we fight every day to help injured Texans get the compensation they deserve. That’s why we want to let you know about a new bill—Texas House Bill 4806 (HB 4806)—that could seriously affect your rights if you’re ever hurt in an accident.
What Is HB4806?
HB 4806 is a proposed law in Texas that would make it harder for people who’ve been injured to get fully compensated for things like medical bills, pain and suffering, and other losses. It’s backed by insurance companies and large corporations that want to limit how much they have to pay when someone gets hurt.
Why This Matters to You
Here’s how this bill could hurt injury victims:
Limits on Medical Bill Compensation
Right now, if you’re hurt and you sue, you can ask for the full amount of your medical bills—even if insurance helped cover some of them. HB 4806 wants to change that. Under this bill, you could only get back what your insurance company actually paid, not what you were charged.
- What this means: If you don’t have insurance or go to a more expensive doctor, you might not be able to recover all your costs—even if the accident wasn’t your fault.
Caps on Pain and Suffering
HB 4806 also wants to put a limit on what you can receive for pain, mental distress, or loss of enjoyment of life.
- For example, in a wrongful death case, it would cap emotional damages at $1 million—no matter how devastating the loss.
- In other injury cases, it limits what you can get to either three times your medical bills or $100,000 per year of your life expectancy, whichever is less.
- Why this is bad: These types of damages are often the most meaningful for victims who suffer life-altering injuries or trauma—and this bill would put a hard limit on them.
Harder to Prove Your Case
The bill also wants to make it tougher to show your medical costs in court and could even make it easier for the other side to argue that you were partly at fault—even if you weren’t.
- Bottom line: This could make it much harder to win your case or get a fair amount of money to cover your losses.
Who Benefits from HB 4806?
Not everyday Texans. Insurance companies and large corporations are the big winners here. They get to pay out less, while injury victims are left struggling to cover medical bills and move forward with their lives.
What Can You Do About It?
- Stay informed. The bill is still being reviewed in the Texas Legislature.
- Call or email your state representative and tell them you oppose HB 4806. Here is a resource for looking up your representative if you don’t know who it is.
Share this with family and friends, especially those who’ve been hurt in accidents or rely on personal injury claims for justice.