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I am not a lawyer. This comment will be long, and I hope informative.
You drove without insurance and just learned the hard way why this is such a bad idea. The fact that you are being sued in small claims court tells me that the other party didn’t have uninsured motorists coverage. If they did, they would have filed on it and the insurance company would be coming after you with a collections agency (first, they could escalate to suing, but small claims isn’t a good choice for them).
First, you could try to reach a settlement with the plaintiff. This is going to be very dry difficult to do without an attorney, and any admission of liability is only going to strengthen their case. Texas is a one party consent state, so assume your calls and conversations are being recorded.
If settlement doesn’t work out and you don’t care to help out the person where you caused the accident you have to get defensive. How clear cut were the facts? Now, where my not being a lawyer is going to come into play. I don’t know all the rules of evidence in a small claims court. By the way, the justice of the peace running the court isn’t required to be a lawyer either. And some will blatantly make up their own rules, so it may not help to know them. The police report will likely be admissible as evidence of what happened. Your statements as they are recorded, etc. Its conclusion is not. Can you deflect blame without committing perjury?
Be prepared to question the plaintiff’s evidence. They may have inflated quotes and be driving up the damage claim unreasonably. The lack of a discovery mechanism in small claims court isn’t going to help. This is why any insurance company would have this moved to a higher court. But you would need a lawyer or significant legal expertise to make that work.
Last, if you get the judgement and can’t or wont pay it, you can join the “unbanked”. The ability to collect a judgment in Texas is very limited. Live with cash for the next 10 years and it will go away. They may hope that you get an inheritance they can attach (real property, a vehicle, etc).
It can be renewed indefinitely, but most will have given up and won’t spend the additional money to collect.
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