For the Record
The Anatomy of a Nuclear Verdict
By now, you’re probably aware that Texas leads the nation in nuclear jury verdicts over $10 million, either because you’ve seen the statistics, experienced rising insurance costs or been on the receiving end of an inflated verdict or settlement. It’s clear that Texas’ litigation environment has shifted from protecting legitimately injured Texans to targeting all job creators, impacting every industry in our economy. But what you may not know is how we got here, after 30 years of common-sense lawsuit reforms. It’s a relatively simple scheme. First, personal injury lawyers are collaborating with healthcare providers to inflate the medical bills presented to prove an injury and establish damages in lawsuits. Here’s how it works: The attorneys have built networks of healthcare providers who agree to work on a contingency fee, over-diagnosing, over-treating and over-billing the lawyers’ clients with the understanding that they will be paid from the lawsuit’s settlement or judgment. The more the providers inflate the value of the case, the more money they make at the end. The providers bill tens of thousands for their services at rates far above the market price. Even if the patient has health insurance, the bills are never submitted for payment. At
Debunking the Rhetoric Around the TCPA
Where do one person’s constitutional rights end and another’s begin? That’s the fundamental question the Legislature must answer as it looks to fix Texas’ dysfunctional anti-SLAPP statute, also known as the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA). As a refresher, the TCPA was passed in 2011 to protect two constitutional rights: freedom of speech and access to the courts. The Legislature specifically wanted to ensure the TCPA was used only in First Amendment cases and went so far as to list 12 kinds of cases in the statute that it is not supposed to apply to. So why, then, has the TCPA been used in: cases for fraud and barratry a water well contamination suit a dispute between neighbors over a fence defamation claims in an employment dispute suits about social media discussions between horse breeders Because the statute itself is flawed. Here’s how it is supposed to work: John sues Jane in response to exercising her First Amendment rights. Jane moves to dismiss the lawsuit under the TCPA, which essentially freezes the lawsuit until the court rules on the motion. A hearing must be held within 60 days after the motion is filed, and the court has to rule within
Protecting Our Communities: Common vs. Public Nuisance
When criminal activity has created a blight on a community, law enforcement and local officials should use every tool at their disposal to address the issue. El Paso County’s recent common nuisance action against the Gateway Hotel—which has become a hotbed of crime in recent years—is the perfect case study. According to the county’s petition to abate the nuisance, law enforcement has been called to the Gateway Hotel 693 times in the last two years. Surveillance footage shows evidence of gunfire, assaults and disorderly conduct. A police report lists suspected prostitution and notes that “continuous criminal activity” has increased with the presence at the hotel of members of a notoriously violent Venezuelan street gang. As a reminder, the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code (CPRC) defines 28 specific actions as common nuisances, including many of the criminal activities occurring at the Gateway Hotel. El Paso’s petition specifically lists 53 violations of the CPRC, including delivery, possession, or use of a controlled substance; aggravated assault; criminal trespass; public intoxication and indecency with a child, among many others. The El Paso County attorney is correct to pursue this cause of action. Texas law provides for common nuisance actions to abate the nuisance—in
Introducing the Lone Star Economic Alliance
TLR is a proud member of the newly-launched Lone Star Economic Alliance (LSEA), a coalition of businesses of all sizes from industries and cities across the state fighting to restore transparency to Texas courtrooms and ensure the legal system operates fairly. Virtually every employer in Texas—from family-owned grocers and landscaping companies to oil and gas providers—has the potential to be involved in an accident that can evolve into a company-threatening lawsuit. Companies want to do the right thing when someone is injured due to the actions of their employees. At the same time, no company wants to be held ransom in a lawsuit by a person who was not injured or who caused his own injury. The litigation environment in Texas has shifted from protecting legitimately injured Texans to targeting all job creators, impacting every industry and the entire Texas economy. Deceptive plaintiff lawyer tactics—like hugely inflated medical bills—have led to an explosion of unjustifiable nuclear verdicts and high-dollar settlements in personal injury lawsuits against Texas job creators. As a result, insurance companies are afraid to go to court in Texas. Instead, they settle cases and pass the increased costs through to the companies they insure. Insurance is already the
Unpacking the Werner Case
Last week, the Texas Supreme Court decided to take up a nuclear personal injury case that resulted in a $92 million judgment against trucking company Werner Enterprises. TLR filed an amicus brief in this case urging the court to uphold what’s called the Admission Rule, a longstanding legal principle that allows a company defendant to simplify a lawsuit by taking legal responsibility for the actions of its employee. In this case, a pickup truck was driving down an icy stretch of I-20 near Odessa when it hit a patch of black ice and skidded across a 42-foot grassy median into oncoming traffic, where it hit Werner’s truck head on. Werner’s truck was going 50 miles per hour—well under the speed limit—immediately tried to stop, never lost control and violated no traffic laws. Unfortunately, the resulting accident led to the death and permanent injuries of two children in the pickup. As the state trooper who investigated the collision noted in his report, it was “truly an accident,” Werner’s driver “didn’t do anything wrong” and there was nothing “he could have done to avoid the collision.” At trial, the driver of the pickup that lost control made statements alluding to his own
She Took the Midnight Train…
She Took the Midnight Train Going Anywhere to the Delaware Chancery Court Imagine you and your longtime business partner are entering a new phase of your partnership and create a new entity to manage it. Because you’re both equal shareholders in this entity, you must both agree on big decisions, from major expenses to hiring and firing staff. But you and your partner don’t agree. Actually, you seriously disagree on how to run this business, butting heads time and again and bringing the entire operation to a grinding halt over even the most routine business activities. Bills go unpaid, morale is in the tank and your reputation in the industry is starting to suffer. Now imagine that partnership is 80’s rock band Journey, and you have the latest high-profile case out of the Delaware Chancery Court. And another example of the kinds of complex business disputes that Texas’ new specialized business court was created to handle. In this case, the band’s keyboardist brought the action against its guitarist, asking the court to appoint a neutral third party as a tie-breaking director on the board of Freedom 2020, the entity Journey created to manage its latest world tour. According to the
ICYMI: Texas Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality of Fifteenth Court of Appeals
On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Fifteenth Court of Appeals, which was created by the Legislature last session and officially comes online September 1. The court—whose inaugural judges were appointed by Gov. Abbott in June and will be accountable to voters statewide in the 2026 elections—has jurisdiction over administrative and constitutional appeals involving the state and state agencies, as well as appeals from the newly created specialized business court. The legal challenge arose in one such case involving Dallas County, which sued the state over an issue with custody of criminal defendants who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial. As intended with the creation of the new court, the state attempted to preemptively move the case to the Fifteenth Court ahead of its launch date, which led Dallas County to file an appeal in the Third Court of Appeals. That appeal was elevated to the Texas Supreme Court. TLR filed an amicus brief in this case, noting that the Legislature specifically vested the Texas Supreme Court with the jurisdiction to resolve any constitutional questions about the Fifteenth Court, and urging SCOTX to resolve those issues ahead of the September 1 launch
Getting SLAPPed around by the TCPA
The Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA)—also known as the anti-SLAPP statute—was passed in 2011 to protect two constitutional rights: freedom of speech and access to the courts. To ensure the law is used only in free speech cases, the statute specifically lists 12 kinds of cases that it is not supposed to apply to, like personal injury lawsuits or those for late payment of an insurance claim. The Legislature clearly had a specific goal in mind with this statute. But it’s application in the real world is creating serious problems. Here’s how it is supposed to work: if a person is sued in response to exercising her First Amendment rights, she can move to dismiss the lawsuit under the TCPA, which essentially freezes the lawsuit until the court rules on the motion. A hearing has to be held within 60 days after the motion is filed, and the court has to rule within 30 days after the hearing. Some accommodations are made if a court’s docket is exceptionally busy. Let’s play out an example: John (the plaintiff) serves Jane (the defendant) with a lawsuit. Jane files a TCPA motion to dismiss 50 days after she’s initially served. The case is
Making Chancery Court Dreams Come True
Ah, celebrities—they’re just like us. At least when it comes to squabbles between business partners. The latest example involves legendary yacht-rock duo Hall and Oates. According to reports, Daryl Hall sued over business and musical partner John Oates’ plan to sell his side of a joint venture, saying it violated their business agreement. Hall says he learned of Oates’ plan to sell his shares… just days before Hall was scheduled to embark on an international tour. “I was blindsided by this information,” Hall wrote. If the sale had went through, Hall says he would’ve been “forced to partner with an entity that I did not agree to partner with, and whose business model does not comport with my views,” writing that “there is no amount of money that could compensate him” for that. A judge issued a temporary injunction blocking the sale until a private arbitrator has a chance to weigh in. You may be asking yourself why TLR would take an interest in what seems to be an out-of-state, music industry-insider lawsuit. The answer is because the case was filed in the Davidson County Chancery Court in Nashville. While the music industry may seem like a complicated world of
Reform in Action: Improving Access to Healthcare
No one would blame you if you missed the shout-out to tort reform in last week’s chaotic Republican presidential debate. In case you didn’t catch it, former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley responded to a question about how to address out-of-control healthcare costs by highlighting the pressures that unnecessary lawsuits add to our healthcare system: “How can we be the best country in the world and have the most expensive healthcare in the world? … You’ve got to deal with tort law. The doctors don’t give you the tests because they want to, it’s because of the 90 percent chance they’ll get sued.” Haley is not the only presidential candidate touting tort reform. Gov. Ron DeSantis has often pointed to Texas as the model he followed in passing tort reform in Florida—even specifically citing Dick Weekley and TLR for leadership on this issue. In the past, access to healthcare was threatened in Texas because of excessive unwarranted lawsuits against physicians and hospitals. The volume and unpredictability of lawsuits caused doctors’ and hospitals’ liability insurance premiums to skyrocket. This high cost, along with the risk and stress of non-meritorious lawsuits, drove many physicians to leave Texas. The flight