Common Questions / Proving Damages
How do I prove lost income if I'm self-employed or work for cash?
The self-employed have no employer letter, so lost income is proven like any business fact: tax returns, 1099s, invoices, bank deposits, the calendar of jobs that stopped, app data for gig work, even the cost of the substitute you hired. The measure is earning capacity, and capacity leaves records.
The measure: capacity, not a pay stub
Texas compensates diminished earning capacity, the reduced ability to earn, which frees the self-employed from the fiction that only W-2 workers lose income. The owner who kept the shop open from a phone but could not run the crews, the tradesman who worked half days at half pace, the consultant who declined the contract she could not physically perform, all lost capacity the law recognizes, whether or not any single paycheck vanished cleanly. That framing also dictates the proof: the question is what the business would have produced through you but for the injury, answered with records and, in larger cases, the economist described on the future-damages page, who converts the pattern into a defensible number.
The evidence a business already keeps
The file assembles from ordinary paper: tax returns and 1099s establishing the baseline years, profit-and-loss statements and bank deposits mapping the revenue rhythm, invoices, contracts, and the booking calendar showing the work that existed and then did not, correspondence declining jobs, and, for gig and platform workers, the app's own data, trips, deliveries, hours, ratings, which quantifies a work life with a precision employers rarely match. Two underused exhibits carry particular weight: the substitute labor you paid to cover what you could not do, a receipt that measures your value in the market's own currency, and the customers who took their business elsewhere and will say so. Seasonality gets handled honestly, comparing the injury months to the same months in prior years, not to the best month you ever had.
The cash problem, addressed like adults
Some working people have underreported income, and an injury case is where that history sends its bill: the tax returns cap the on-paper story, and no honest lawyer will sponsor a claim that contradicts sworn filings. The response is candor and construction, the claim is built on what the admissible records genuinely support, bank activity, invoices, the substitute-labor cost, capacity evidence, without inflating past the returns, and the client is counseled plainly about the tradeoffs rather than led into testimony that creates worse problems than a smaller wage claim. A recovery built on defensible numbers survives cross-examination; one built on wishes funds the defense's closing argument.
Start the ledger now
From the first week, keep the turned-down jobs, the substitute invoices, and the calendar as carefully as the medical records, they are the wage case. Silver Key Law builds self-employed income claims with the rigor they need, and the consultation is free.
Injured in Arizona? Some rules on this page are Texas-specific. Arizona differs on points that change outcomes, including pure comparative fault and government-claim deadlines. See our Arizona answers or call (888) 508-6967.
Related: What Is a Case Worth · Proving Future Damages · Submit Your Case · All Common Questions
This page is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your specific situation. Deadlines and outcomes depend on facts; talk to a lawyer about yours.
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