Storm Chasing Lawyers: Where Are They Now?
September 1 marks the one-year anniversary of the enactment of House Bill 1774, the Texas Legislature’s solution to stop storm-chasing lawyers from taking advantage of property owners after natural disasters. After the explosion of unnecessary lawsuits against insurance companies following hail and wind events, property insurers in parts of the state were raising premiums and deductibles, or had stopped offering coverage in some areas all together. The Legislature acted decisively in 2017 to shut down this obvious lawsuit abuse and stop storm-chasing lawyers from hijacking our property insurance premiums.
Our data shows that during the four-and-a-half-year period from Jan. 1, 2014, through June 30, 2018, more than 34,600 weather-related lawsuits were filed throughout Texas, an average of 640 new lawsuits per month. Compare that to the six years before 2012, when fewer than 4,500 of these lawsuits were filed in Texas, an average of only 62 new lawsuits per month.
This explosion of lawsuits was driven by lawyer conduct—including the unlawful and unethical recruitment of clients through door-to-door solicitation by case generators.
TLR’s recent data shows that weather-related lawsuit filing spiked in August 2017, the month before HB 1774 took effect, as storm-chasing lawyers dumped their inventory of heavily-solicited lawsuits into the court system. They filed 1,553 new weather-related lawsuits in that single month! And in more than 36 percent of those lawsuits, the plaintiff’s lawyer named an individual as a co-defendant with the insurance company in order manipulate venue.
But since then, the number of lawsuits filed each month dipped significantly, although we have begun to see a slight uptick in the number of lawsuits filed in the past few months. We hope these positive trends will continue. We will keep an eye on the courts to study the rate of weather-related lawsuit filings.
OP-ED: “As a small business owner in Bakersfield, I know firsthand how desperate the California small business community is to catch a break during the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has already gone on longer than anyone expected, but instead of receiving help from our state leaders in Sacramento, we are left to suffer needlessly with no end in sight.” Read and share: bit.ly/3BOMVQO
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As a small business owner in Bakersfield, I know firsthand how desperate the California small business community is to catch a break during the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has already gone on lon...OP-ED: Texas policymakers must allow Texas employers to decide their own best practices to maintain workplace health and safety. To do otherwise would establish a concerning precedent of state interference into determining what workforce health and safety policies are best, without regard for a particular industry’s needs or the differences in manufacturing work environments. Read and share: bit.ly/3pbp22j
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The Texas economy is strong because policymakers trust employers to run their businesses in ways that grow jobs and maintain a productive workforce. A healthy workforce results in a more productive wo...Texans for Lawsuit Reform And if you dont intervene, freedom suffers another blow and socialism gains a firmer foothold because businesses have shown, regardless of need or difference of environment, they are more than willing to violate an individual’s freedom and restrict their ability to work.
Republicans in the Texas Legislature face an uphill battle as they try to pass a bill exempting most of the state’s workforce from vaccine requirements enacted by their employers. In another sign of trouble, Texans for Lawsuit Reform came out against one of the bills ordered up by Abbott, House Bill 155, which the Texas House State Affairs Committee considered Wednesday. Read and share: bit.ly/3jfBsCK
Opposition grows as Texas Republicans try to upend vaccine mandates - Texans for Lawsuit Reform
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Republicans in the Texas Legislature face an uphill battle as they try to pass a bill exempting most of the state’s workforce from vaccine requirements enacted by their employers. For one, Republica...
OP-ED: “I know firsthand how desperate the small business community is to catch a break during the #COVID19 pandemic. Instead of receiving help from our state leaders in Sacramento, we are left to suffer needlessly with no end in sight.” Read & RT:
Coronavirus crippled Calif. small businesses. Lawsuit reform can’t come fast enough. - Texans for Lawsuit Reform
As a small business owner in Bakersfield, I know firsthand how desperate the California small business community is to catch a break during the COVID-...
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OP-ED: Texas policymakers must allow Texas employers to decide their own best practices to maintain workplace health and safety. To do otherwise would establish a concerning precedent. Read & RT: #tortreform
Commentary: Texas employers need flexibility to maintain workplace safety - Texans for Lawsuit Reform
The Texas economy is strong because policymakers trust employers to run their businesses in ways that grow jobs and maintain a productive workforce. A...
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