$30,000 Rotator Cuff Tear Settlement After a Car Accident on FM 78 en San Antonio

The Case in Brief

A Stalled Truck, a Stopped SUV and a Jeep That Could Not Stop

It was 5:27 on a clear, dry Thursday evening in August, and traffic was moving north on FM 78, a two way road with no median and a posted limit of 45 mph. A white Ford F-250 came to a halt in the middle of the road; its driver later told the officer that a diesel line had come off. Our client was behind the truck in her red RAV4. She saw it stop and braked in time. The blue Jeep Wrangler behind her did not, and the hit sent her SUV into the back of the pickup.

The narrative box on page 2 records each driver’s account, quoted here exactly:

Unit 1 is the Jeep, unit 2 is our client’s RAV4 and unit 3 is the pickup. Two lines stand out. Our client had already stopped short of the stalled truck on her own, and the Jeep’s driver told the officer he could not stop in time.

The officer also checked Yes in the report’s Secondary Crash box. TxDOT’s CR-3 instructions for officers say the box marks a crash that “occurs as a result of another traffic incident or crash,” and they ask the officer to explain the cause in the narrative. On FM 78, the earlier incident was the breakdown.

The box is a recent addition. CRIS, TxDOT’s crash records database, carries it only for crashes after March 31, 2023, when the April 2023 version of the form used for this report took effect. In 2025, the latest full year we checked, San Antonio had 393 reportable crashes marked secondary, about 1% of the city’s 37,304. In 41 of them a vehicle going straight ran into a stopped one, the pattern on FM 78. For April through December 2023, the city’s count was 256. Each crash counts once in these figures. When one wreck sets off another, more than one driver can share the blame, and our page on crashes with three or more vehicles explains how Texas divides it.

A Driver With No License

The Jeep’s driver was 17. His license block on the report shows type 5, the CR-3 code for unlicensed, and the same 5 fills the class, endorsement and restriction boxes beside it. Page 2 lists one charge against him: NO DL, short for no driver’s license.

Texas law leaves no room on that point. Transportation Code § 521.021 bars anyone the chapter does not exempt from driving on a Texas highway “unless the person holds a driver’s license issued under this chapter.”

Families call us about crashes like this one. A parent who phoned in August 2026 about a daughter’s accident described the other driver as “a 17 year old kid that didn’t even have a driver’s license.”

San Antonio crash records show how often the license box reads unlicensed. In 2025, officers coded at least one driver unlicensed in 2,542 of the city’s 37,304 reportable crashes, about 7%, and in 626 of its 10,058 rear end crashes, about 6%. In 2023 the shares were higher, about 9% of all crashes and 8% of rear end crashes. Rear end here means the two CRIS collision types for same direction impacts: both vehicles going straight, or one going straight and the other stopped. The figures show only what officers entered in the license type box. They do not show which driver caused any crash.

The Bexar County Report, Box by Box

Most of the four page form is numbered codes. These entries shaped this claim; the CR-3 decoder on our site covers the rest of the boxes.

The officer picked both Jeep factors: 19, distraction in vehicle, and 22, failed to control speed. The report does not say what the distraction was. Our client’s RAV4 carries no factor at all, and the pickup’s only entry is the defect code, 98, which points back to the diesel line in the narrative.

Small Numbers on the Form, Real Dents on the Cars

Every vehicle on a CR-3 gets a three part damage rating. A clock number gives the direction of the impact, two letters name the damaged area, and a final digit from 0 to 7 grades how bad it is. Nothing in this crash rated higher than 3.

A 3 sounds minor. The opening photo of the RAV4 shows what it meant in metal: the rear bumper cover folded in on itself and the liftgate dented below the license plate. The Jeep’s front bumper came away with a crease and scuff marks. No airbag deployed in any of the three vehicles, and none of them left on a tow truck.

A damage rating grades sheet metal, not people. The N beside each driver’s name is the officer’s judgment at the roadside, made before any doctor had examined anyone. Our client’s injuries were documented later: at a chiropractic exam 12 days after the crash, and on MRIs that November.

What She Went Through Después de FM 78

No ambulance took her from FM 78, and she did not go to an emergency room. When she reached a chiropractor on August 22, 12 days after the crash, she reported that she had been relying on over the counter medicine.

Her complaints at that first exam:

• Cuello
• Parte baja de la espalda
• Right shoulder
• Cabeza

The chiropractor found swelling, muscle spasm, tender knots called trigger points and limited motion in each of those areas, along with grinding in the right shoulder as it moved. Orthopedic tests came back positive: Spurling’s and Soto Hall for the neck, and the straight leg raise for the lower back. Her neurological exam was normal and she walked normally. The chiropractor diagnosed sprains in her neck, lower back and right shoulder, plus a lumbar and pelvic sprain. Imaging was ordered at that visit, along with a referral to pain management.

Her care through the fall and winter paired guided exercise with electrical stimulation and heat or ice. At re exams on November 11 and December 4, the chiropractor described her as “slightly better.”

The MRIs

MRIs on November 14 and 20 found the shoulder injury. The supraspinatus, the rotator cuff tendon that runs across the top of the shoulder, had a small tear near the spot where it attaches, and the tear went through the full thickness of the tendon. In her neck, a disc protrusion touched the thecal sac, the membrane that surrounds the spinal cord, while the cord itself looked normal. In her lower back, one disc protrusion touched the thecal sac and another touched the nerve roots on both sides.

On a July 2026 call, a Richardson driver hit from behind while waiting at a red light put it this way: “I have a rotator cuff injury and I don’t know if that is considered to be serious.” Doctors describe a tendon tear by its size and its depth. A partial thickness tear leaves some of the tendon intact; a full thickness tear, like the one on our client’s MRI, goes all the way through. On December 4, her chiropractor added rotator cuff tear and disc displacement to her diagnoses and referred her to an orthopedic specialist.

Pain management

On February 12, 2024, about six months after the crash, she went to a pain management physician. She described neck pain running down into her arms, low back pain running down into her legs, and pain in her right shoulder. The physician diagnosed irritated nerve roots at both the neck and the lower back (cervical radiculopathy and lumbar radiculitis), low back pain and the right rotator cuff tear. The plan: gabapentin for nerve pain, the muscle relaxant cyclobenzaprine, the anti inflammatory meloxicam and acetaminophen with codeine, plus a recommendation for epidural steroid injections, both cervical and lumbar.

On February 24, 2024, her chiropractor recorded her as “significantly better” and released her at maximum therapeutic benefit, the point at which more of the same care was not expected to bring further gains.

From August 2023 to February 2024

1. August 10, 2023: At 5:27 p.m. the Jeep strikes the RAV4 on FM 78. The officer arrives at 5:37, and the scene is clear by 6:15.
2. August 22, 2023: First chiropractic exam; sprain diagnoses, imaging ordered, pain management referral.
3. Fall 2023: Ongoing chiropractic therapy.
4. November 11, 2023: Re exam; noted as slightly better.
5. November 14 and 20, 2023: MRIs of her shoulder, neck and lower back; the shoulder study shows the full thickness rotator cuff tear.
6. December 4, 2023: The tear and the disc findings become formal diagnoses; orthopedic referral.
7. February 12, 2024: Pain management consultation: nerve root diagnoses, new prescriptions, injections recommended.
8. February 24, 2024: Released from chiropractic care, significantly better.
9. Antes de iniciar cualquier demanda: The claim settles for $30,000, the policy limit.

No License, but the Jeep Had Coverage

Whether a driver holds a license and whether a vehicle carries insurance are separate questions. The Jeep was owned by someone other than the teenager driving it, and the report marks Yes in its proof of financial responsibility box; the insurer’s name is blacked out in the public copy. Under Transportation Code § 601.076, an owner’s liability policy in Texas has to cover the named insured and also a person using the covered vehicle with the named insured’s permission, whether that permission is stated outright or implied. Our page on drivers who flee, lie or carry no insurance goes deeper into borrowed cars.

In July 2026 a caller who had been driving their father’s car when they caused an accident said the insurer did not want to pay the other drivers. A staff member explained the usual rule: “As long as you weren’t an excluded driver, they should still accept the claim for the other party.” An excluded driver is someone the policy itself names as not covered.

Every liability policy caps what it pays for one injured person. Section 601.072 sets the Texas floor at $30,000 for one person’s injuries and $60,000 per collision when two or more people are hurt, and our guide to Texas minimum coverage walks through the full 30/60/25 rule. The Jeep’s policy carried exactly that minimum, and our client’s claim used all of it. When one policy runs out before the losses do, our page on an at fault driver with too little insurance explains where else money can come from.

$30,000 Policy Limit, No Lawsuit Filed

We resolved the claim without filing suit. The insurer covering the Jeep paid $30,000, every dollar its policy allowed for our client’s injuries.

Records behind the claim

The claim stood on documents: the Bexar County crash report, photos of the RAV4 and the Jeep, her chiropractic records from the first exam through her release, the MRI reports for her neck, lower back and shoulder, and the pain management consultation. Because no suit was filed, she never sat for a deposition or set foot in a courtroom.

Our client’s name and identifying details stay private. The figure above is the gross amount; the firm’s fee, the case’s expenses and any lien holders are paid from that sum. Facts, medical records and available coverage are different in every claim, so this result is not a forecast for any other case.

Lessons From the FM 78 Accidente

• A driver with no license can still be behind the wheel of an insured vehicle, so find out whose car it was.
• A Yes in the Secondary Crash box means an earlier incident set things off, and the narrative should name it.
• Severity numbers on a CR-3 describe vehicle damage, not what happened to the people inside.
• This claim reached the policy limit with no emergency room visit and a first appointment 12 days after the crash.
• The rotator cuff tear did not appear in her records until an MRI three months after the collision.
• Photos of both vehicles matter: the Jeep’s light crease and the RAV4’s folded bumper cover tell one story together.

Abogado Reseña

Revisado por: Josh Alexander, fundador y abogado gerente

Published and last reviewed: 4 de octubre de 2026

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