What Chapter 72 changed for trials after a commercial truck crash in Texas

In 2021 the Texas Legislature passed House Bill 19, which added Subchapter B to Chapter 72 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. It applies only to lawsuits for injury or death caused in a collision with a commercial motor vehicle, and it changes how those cases are tried. The Legislature amended parts of it in 2023. This article walks through each section as it reads on the Texas Legislature’s statutes site in October 2026.

Which cases it covers

Section 72.051 defines the covered civil action as one in which a claimant seeks damages for bodily injury or death caused in a collision, and a defendant operated a commercial motor vehicle involved in it, or owned, leased or otherwise controlled the vehicle or its operator. A commercial motor vehicle is a motor vehicle used for commercial purposes in interstate or intrastate commerce to transport property or passengers, deliver goods or provide services. A vehicle being used for personal, family or household purposes at the time is not one. The definition is broader than the federal one: a contractor’s pickup on a job can count.

A trial in two phases

Under section 72.052, when a defendant asks, the court must split the trial. The motion must be made by the later of the 120th day after that defendant files its original answer, or the 30th day after a claimant adds a claim against it. In the first phase the jury decides liability for compensatory damages and their amount. In the second phase it decides liability for and the amount of exemplary damages.

The split matters because of what each phase may hear. A finding in the first phase that the employee driver was negligent lets the claimant continue in the second phase with claims against the employer, such as negligent entrustment, that depend on the driver’s negligence.

Evidence of broken rules

Truck cases often turn on federal safety rules. Section 72.053 limits how violations come into the first phase: evidence that a defendant failed to comply with a statute, regulation, rule or order is admissible only if it tends to prove that the failure was a proximate cause of the injury or death, and the rule is specific and governs the defendant, its employee or its equipment. A logbook violation that had nothing to do with how the crash happened may be kept out of the first phase. The section says expressly that it does not prevent a claim for exemplary damages based on other violations, or evidence on that claim in the second phase.

The employer’s stipulation

Section 72.054 lets the employer narrow the first phase further. If it stipulates, within the time for the motion to bifurcate, that the driver was its employee and acting within the scope of employment, its liability for the driver’s ordinary negligence rests only on respondeat superior. In a split trial, the claimant may then not present evidence in the first phase on ordinary negligence claims, like negligent entrustment, that require a finding that the driver was negligent first.

There is an important exception for carriers regulated by the federal Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act or Chapter 644 of the Transportation Code. For them, section 72.054(c) lists facts that may still be shown in the first phase to prove negligent entrustment, among them:

• whether the driver was licensed, disqualified under 49 CFR 383.51, 383.52 or 391.15, or subject to an out-of-service order at the time
• whether the driver had a road test certificate and was medically certified under 49 CFR 391.41
• whether the driver was driving in violation of the hours rules in 49 CFR 395.3 or 395.5, or the Texas rule in 37 TAC 4.12
• whether the driver was texting or using a hand-held phone in violation of 49 CFR 392.80 or 392.82
• for a crash in the driver’s first year with the employer, whether the driver gave an employment application and whether the employer made the background investigations in 49 CFR 391.23(a)
• whether the driver refused a required controlled substance test in the two years before the crash

Section 72.054(f) also keeps open claims that do not depend on the driver’s negligence, such as negligent maintenance, and claims for exemplary damages against the employer in the second phase.

Photographs and video

Section 72.055 deals with photographs and video, which often come up in arguments about how hard the impact was. A court may not require opinion testimony from an engineer or other professional witness, beyond what is needed for authentication, to admit a photograph or video of a vehicle or object involved in the collision. Once authenticated, such a photograph or video is presumed admissible even if it tends to support or refute an assertion about how severe the damage or the injury was.

What it means for an injured person

• Causation comes first. Each rule violation has to be tied to how the crash happened to be heard in the first phase. A case is built from the crash outward: the engine data, the scene and the vehicles first, then the records that explain them.
• The listed facts matter. Licensing, medical certification, hours, phone use and first-year hiring checks can still be proved in the first phase. Those records go into the preservation letter.
• Direct claims against the carrier remain. Negligent maintenance and similar claims are not limited by the stipulation.
• Exemplary damages are a separate stage. Evidence that a carrier knew of a danger and ignored it belongs to the second phase, under the standard of section 41.003.

For how these rules apply to each defendant, see our truck accident attorney San Antonio page. For the full set of Texas statutes in a truck case, see Texas truck accident laws.