In a move to curb big jury verdicts, the Texas Senate voted in favor of SB30, which proposes significant changes to Texas civil law and how damages are recovered in personal injury and wrongful death cases.
But plaintiff firms are pushing back.
The proposed law, SB30, would impact personal injury lawsuits in Texas by reducing overall damage awards in personal injury cases.
Senators voted along party lines, with 20 Republicans voting in favor of the bill and 11 Democrats voting against it.
“Nuclear Verdicts have major financial consequences and can leave individuals and businesses in ruins,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement following the passage of SB30. “These monstrous verdicts drive up insurance costs for Texans and make it harder for businesses to operate in Texas effectively.
Nuclear verdicts are jury awards of $10 million or more, according to Texans Against Lawsuit Abuse.
Patrick has included SB30, which he calls the “Curbing Nuclear Verdicts” bill, and SB39, the “Protecting Texas Trucking” bill, in his list of high-priority legislation during the 89th Legislative session. SB39 is pending in committee.
Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, sponsored SB30, which makes it harder for plaintiffs to recover large medical expense awards. In many cases, recoverable medical expenses are capped at 300 percent of Medicare rates. The bill also limits pain and suffering damages by setting stricter standards and creating transparency requirements for attorney-provider relationships.
The proposed law now goes to the Texas House of Representatives, where Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-League City, has already introduced a companion bill, HB4806.
Many attorneys and law firms have spoken out against the bill, including the Carlson Law Firm in Austin, which posted an alert urging Texans to contact their state legislators to vote against it.
“While HB4806 and SB30 are framed as a way to ‘reform’ the system, it will actually strip away critical rights, limit access to medical care, and threaten the foundational principles of fairness and accountability in the Civil Justice System,” according to the Carson Law Firm.
“SB30 is being pushed under the guise of tort reform, but its real beneficiaries are liability insurers and big businesses,” according to a post from the Ardalan Law Firm in Austin. “Capping damages doesn’t stop frivolous lawsuits— it stops legitimate victims from receiving fair compensation, even when they’ve been harmed by negligence or recklessness.”
Cody A. Dishon, a partner at the Ferguson Law Firm in Beaumont, has been closely following SB30 and strongly objects to it.
“It’s a threat to every Texan,” Dishon said. “It’s essentially a bill designed to close the courthouse doors for the most vulnerable citizens in Texas.”
He plans to travel to Austin to testify about the damage the bill would do to injured Texans.
The House committee will hold a hearing on the bill in the next few weeks.
“The San Antonio trial lawyers’ position is that the jury and the trial judge need to have the authority given to them through the US and Texas constitution to make all decisions regarding the outcome of a trial, and SB30 still limits what a trial judge and what a jury can do in the interest of supporting insurance companies lessen verdicts versus supporting juries who make findings as authorized by the constitution,” said Lara Brock, president of the San Antonio Trial Lawyers.
“No one in Texas ever thinks this will impact them,” Brock said. “You don’t get into your car and drive down the road thinking that bills about limiting a jury’s potential award in a catastrophic injury case or any injury case will ever matter to your life until it does.”
Brock continued, “Insurance companies don’t vote, trucking companies don’t vote, people in Texas vote, and unfortunately, these bills represent putting the interests of some of these companies above the general citizens of the state, and that’s a real shame.”
“The more catastrophically injured you are, the worse the bill is for you,” said Jack Walker, president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association.
“They’re attempting to tie and cap economic damages at a Medicare rate… under Article 3 section 66 of the Texas constitution that’s unconstitutional,” Walker said. “Many providers don’t even take Medicare… because of the rates and the fact that they’re so low. You have a patient recover a capped amount and still owe large balances to their providers and allow the wrongdoer defendant to get off the hook.”
The non-economic damages side of the bill is extremely restrictive and prohibitive to especially catastrophically injured, disfigured patients, impaired patients, sexual assault victims, Walker said. He testified against it during the Senate hearing and plans to testify against it in the House hearing.
“It’s just unfair the way this bill is written… it doesn’t allow the process to work,” Walker said. “Juries get it right for the most part…Bills like these are fundamental distrust of our jury system which is the backbone of the 7th amendment.”