Day 28: Tort Reform Bill Gives High Court New Powers
Throughout the month of August, The Texas Tribune is featuring 31 ways Texans' lives will change come Sept. 1, the date most bills passed by the Legislature — including the dramatically reduced budget — take effect. Check out our story calendar here.
Day 28: Under a new tort reform law, the Texas Supreme Court will make rules to expedite lawsuits with claims under $100,000 and to allow judges to dismiss those without merit early on. And it also will grant legal costs to prevailing parties under certain circumstances.
As the debate over a tort reform bill reached a crescendo on the ...
Comments (8)
Lee Dunkelberg via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The merit of the case being decided by the campaign donations of the parties involved.
Deb Nun via Texas Tribune on Facebook
With the corruption so rampant in Texas Judicial System/State Bar Assoc., this is a very bad move..
Chris Gilbert via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What's even more scary is that Perry, if elected, will seek to do this on a national scale. Absurd, but all the big money corporate donors love it.
Chris Gilbert via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Deb, how is the State Bar of Texas "corrupt", as you say?
Jim Hsu via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This is more a PR move than real reform. It covers only the suits where the $$ in question is less than $100,000. That will just make people sue for more to bypass this and go without the worry of paying for the other side's legal expenses.
Tex Viet Vet via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Well, some people will probably settle up in a different way. Some greedy corrupt people may end up not living long enough to enjoy their money. If I end up on the jury, well..........
Jerry Stopher via Texas Tribune on Facebook
To dismiss a "meritless" lawsuit sounds good on its face, especially to the people who have been listening to the anti-lawyer lobby for the last about three or two decades. But is there any provision to ensure that it is really without merit?
I think Lee Dunkelberg hit the nail spang on the head with his comment above: the determining factor will be the size of the campaign contributions.
Daniel Horowitz
No one ever mentions frivolous defenses. I like that it's in the defendant's view the plaintiff doesn't have a claim. Go figure, that's called a jury system. The Texas rules of civil procedure and the disciplinary rules have punishments if an attorney files a document which is frivolous, but defense lawyers don't use this rule because they get paid by the hour. "Don't throw me in the briar patch and make me go through discovery. At $400/hr I don't want to answer discovery, take depos, file 40 page motions, etc."
“You're faced with a situation where in your view the plaintiff does not have a meritorious claim at all and yet you've got to go through discovery before you can bring that to the court's attention,” Babcock said, “That’s always been frustrating from a defendant’s perspective.”