$85,000 Underinsured Motorist Settlement After a Left Turn Crash on Spring Valley Road in Farmers Branch

The Case at a Glance

A Left Turn Through a Gap in Stopped Traffic

We rebuilt this crash from two sources, the officer’s report and the scene photos, and they line up.

Spring Valley Road is divided here by a protected median and posted at 40 mph. At 8:30 on a cloudy Thursday morning, eastbound traffic in the lane closest to the median had backed up, while the center lane kept moving. Our client was in that center lane in her Tesla Model 3. A westbound Ford Edge turned left through the median, crossed in front of the stopped cars and pulled into her lane on its way to a parking lot on the south side.

The officer’s account on page 2, copied exactly:

Unit 1 is the Edge and Unit 2 is our client’s Tesla. The narrative records three things that mattered: the Edge turned in front of her, its driver failed to yield, and she tried to avoid it before her front right corner met the back of the Edge’s right side.

A line of stopped cars can hide the next lane from a driver turning across it, and it can hide the turning car from drivers in that next lane. A Dallas caller hit in a similar crash described the maneuver to us in July 2026: drivers on the far side of the road who “make that left turn and come all the way across oncoming traffic, like to get in those businesses.”

Who Had to Yield

A gap in a stopped lane is not permission to cross the next one. Transportation Code § 545.152 covers a turn “into an alley or private road or driveway” as well as a turn at an intersection: the turning driver has to give way to oncoming vehicles near enough to be an immediate hazard. The Edge was turning left into a business driveway, and our client’s Tesla was oncoming in the open lane.

The officer’s contributing factor for the Edge was 37, which TxDOT’s CR-3 code sheet uses for a left turn made without yielding. The same list has a separate entry, 34, for failing to yield at a private drive; this report uses 37. No factor appears for our client.

Left turns across oncoming traffic are a steady share of Farmers Branch crash reports. In 2025, CRIS, TxDOT’s crash records database, put 85 of the city’s 919 reportable crashes in the category for one vehicle going straight and an opposite direction vehicle turning left, about 9%. Officers listed factor 37 as a contributing factor for at least one driver in 72 of those 919 crashes. In 2023 the counts were 104 and 96 out of 815. Each crash counts once, the city is the one named on the report, and a contributing factor is the investigating officer’s opinion. Our statewide left turn crash study tracks how serious these crashes tend to be, and our guide to failure to yield crashes walks through who yields in other situations.

The Farmers Branch Report, Line by Line

The two page report packs most of the facts into numbered codes. These are the ones this claim turned on; for every other box, see our guide to Texas crash report codes.

The copy in our file is the certified one. TxDOT’s custodian of crash records signed its certification on September 22, 2023, eight days after the crash, stating that it is a true and correct copy of the report the officer filed. From it we took what every claim like this starts with: the officer’s account of the crash, a contributing factor for the Edge’s driver and none for our client, and the insurance listed for each vehicle, which named the company standing behind the Edge.

Crushed Corner, Scraped Quarter

Each damage rating on a CR-3 gives the clock direction of the force, a short code for the area struck, and a severity digit from 0 to 7.

Five photos in our file were taken at the scene that morning, all before the officer arrived at 8:43: three of the Tesla and two of the Edge. We checked each one against the ratings above, and they match. The Tesla’s front right corner took the hit: the bumper cover split and peeled back around the wheel, the headlamp cracked and the fender creased, and the car was towed from Spring Valley Road. The Edge’s right rear corner came away scraped, with its bumper cover pulled loose, and the Edge was not towed.

From Injections to Neck Fusion

The officer coded our client N, not injured, and no ambulance took her anywhere. There was no emergency room visit. On October 10, 2023, she saw a pain management physician for pain in her neck, her mid back and her lower back, along with tension headaches. The exam found reduced range of motion through the neck and lower spine and pain over the facet joints, the small joints along the back of the spine; her neurological exam was normal. X rays showed her neck had lost its normal curve. The physician ordered MRIs and physical therapy and prescribed acetaminophen and methocarbamol, a muscle relaxant.

What the MRIs showed

The October 28 MRIs found disc bulges and protrusions in her neck, with tears through the tough outer ring of several discs, tears the radiologist described as “acute.” The spinal cord itself showed no abnormal signal. In her lower back, a disc protrusion with a similar tear and a bulge above it narrowed the openings where nerves leave the spine.

Therapy and injections

Physical therapy started in December: exercise, hands on manual therapy, traction, electrical stimulation, and heat and cold. In January 2024 she had two epidural steroid injections, which place anti inflammatory medicine near irritated spinal nerves, one in her lower back on January 9 and one in her neck on January 23. On February 20 she reported “near complete relief” from both, her headaches had become rare, and no further injections were recommended.

The spine surgeon

On May 1, 2024, a spine surgeon examined her and found brisk reflexes, including an inverted brachioradialis reflex, a reflex sign that points to pressure on the spinal cord at neck level; weakness in her right triceps and her left grip; reduced feeling in her left hand; and slow, uncoordinated opening and closing of her right hand. The diagnosis was cervical myelopathy, compression of the spinal cord in the neck, along with narrowing in her lower spine. At her June 28 visit she described trouble opening jars and numbness in her hands that was getting worse, and the exam found new numbness in her right forearm and weakness in both hands. The surgeon recommended an anterior cervical discectomy and fusion, an operation that removes damaged disc material through the front of the neck and fuses the bones on either side. She went ahead with the fusion surgery.

The $50,000 Limit, Then Her Own UIM

The Edge’s liability policy capped what it would pay for our client’s injuries at $50,000, more than the $30,000 Texas minimum explained in our guide to the 30/60/25 rule, but still a ceiling. Once that insurer paid every dollar of it, the rest of the recovery had to come from our client’s own policy.

That coverage is underinsured motorist coverage, or UIM. Insurance Code § 1952.101 makes it part of every Texas auto liability policy unless an insured on the policy declines it in writing. A vehicle counts as underinsured when its liability limits are lower than the UIM limit on the injured person’s own policy (§ 1952.103), and UIM then covers the rest of what the driver at fault is legally responsible for, up to the UIM limit (§ 1952.106). In August 2026 a staff member reminded a caller that it is “always good to just know the coverages,” and of UIM in particular: “That’s just the extra coverage that you can tap into as well.”

Our guide to claims that outgrow the other driver’s coverage explains these rules in depth, and our $105,000 Dallas result shows another case where UIM added to a policy limit recovery. What we did with all of it on her file comes next.

How We Built Her Claim

Every file at our firm passes through the same three sets of hands: our intake team, a case manager and a senior attorney. Here is what each of them does on a claim like hers, and what that looked like on her file, which went into a lawsuit.

Intake: the first conversation

Someone on our intake team picks up at any hour, and the call can happen in English or Spanish. The first conversation after a crash like this one gathers what everything else is built on: when and where it happened, whether an officer came, any photos from the scene, the insurance on both vehicles, what hurts, and what care has started. Intake then opens the file and hands it to a case manager.

Her case manager: records and updates

Each client gets one assigned case manager, a phone line straight to that person for calls and texts, and an update from our office at least every 14 days. The case manager follows the treatment as it happens. Hers ran from a pain clinic to an MRI center, through physical therapy and two injections, and on to a spine surgeon, and we requested the records and bills from each of those providers and read every page. By the end, her records ran to 224 pages.

When fusion was recommended

The surgeon’s recommendation in June 2024 changed the size of this claim. We gathered written estimates for the operation itself: the surgeon’s fees, the hospital’s charges and the implants. Those figures stay off this page, like every other medical number in her file.

Her attorney: the demand

A senior attorney leads every file. That attorney reviews the report and the insurance on both sides, signs off on the demand, leads the talks with the insurers and takes the client’s questions directly. On paper, fault pointed one way from the start: factor 37 for the Edge’s driver, nothing listed for our client, and a statute that makes the turning driver yield to oncoming traffic. Her demand to the Edge’s insurer drew on the whole file, along with a summary from an outside records reviewer, prepared for the demand, that projected the care still ahead of her. The insurer did not pay its limit.

Into a lawsuit

When the other side’s insurer refuses to pay a limit that a client’s injuries outrun, we file suit, and we did here. A lawsuit puts the claim on a court’s schedule. In discovery, each side must disclose what it knows, answer written questions under oath and turn over documents, and witnesses can be questioned under oath in depositions. For a client, discovery usually means sworn written answers about the crash, the treatment and daily life since, prepared with us, and sometimes a deposition.

We have walked this road before. On our $82,500 Plano result, another left turn crash, the truck’s commercial insurer said no to a policy limits demand before suit, and that case resolved in litigation in June 2026.

A fight for the full $50,000

Her case was in discovery when the Edge’s insurer agreed to pay its full $50,000, the most its policy would cover for her injuries. It took a fight to get there, and our attorney stayed on it until that limit was paid.

Then her own policy

With the Edge’s policy paid out, the at fault side of her claim was finished, but her losses ran past that limit. Her own auto policy carried underinsured motorist coverage, and that claim settled for $35,000 in February 2026, while the lawsuit was still pending.

September 2023 to February 2026

1. September 14, 2023: The Edge turns across Spring Valley Road at 8:30 a.m.; the officer arrives at 8:43 and the scene clears by 9:00.
2. September 22, 2023: TxDOT certifies the copy of the crash report we work from.
3. October 10, 2023: First visit with a pain management physician; MRIs and physical therapy ordered.
4. October 28, 2023: MRIs find torn discs in her neck and lower spine.
5. December 2023: Physical therapy begins.
6. January 9 and 23, 2024: Epidural steroid injections, lower back first, then neck.
7. February 20, 2024: She reports near complete relief; no more injections recommended.
8. May 1, 2024: The spine surgeon’s exam turns up signs of cord compression.
9. June 28, 2024: Fusion surgery recommended, and she chooses to have it.
10. Afterward: The neck fusion is performed.
11. In suit: We file the lawsuit, and the case moves into discovery.
12. In discovery: After a fight, the Edge’s insurer pays its full $50,000.
13. February 2026: The UIM claim on her own policy settles at $35,000; the total is $85,000.

$85,000, Settled During Discovery

Both claims resolved while our lawsuit was in discovery, so the case ended without a trial. Our page on suing after a Texas car accident lays out each stage of a Texas lawsuit.

We keep our client’s identity private. These are gross figures; the firm’s fee, case expenses and medical liens are deducted before she receives her share. Every case has its own injuries, records, fault picture and coverage, so this result is not an estimate for anyone else’s claim.

Lessons From Spring Valley Road

• Turning left into a driveway, a driver must give way to oncoming cars, even when the nearest lane has stopped and left a gap.
• A policy limit is a ceiling, not a valuation. When one is paid in full, check the injured person’s own policy for UIM.
• Factor 37 on a CR-3 records the officer’s view of the cause even when the charges section is blank.
• Her spine surgeon’s notes, down to her trouble opening jars, put her daily limits on the record.
• Damage photos of both vehicles matched the officer’s ratings and the narrative’s point of impact.
• Written estimates turn a recommended surgery into a documented cost instead of a guess.
• A lawsuit is not a trial: this one ended in discovery, with both claims paid.

Attorney Review

Reviewed by: Josh Alexander, Founder and Managing Attorney

First published October 4, 2026, reviewed the same day

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