An interactive map comparing how much TWIA paid claimants for three major hurricanes that hit the Texas coast and the number of lawsuits claimants filed in return. Also find the ten law firms with the biggest settlements from TWIA and compare the number of lawsuits and legal defense spending for each storm.

A Texas Tribune analysis found that the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association mishandled claims after Hurricane Ike and paid millions of dollars to defend its fraudulent behavior and claimants’ lawyers profited from huge settlements and legal fees. 

Want a quick recap of some of the happenings this week in the Texas Legislature? We've made it easier for you with our weekly video rundown of the action under the dome.

Lawmakers and consumer groups say special interests need to butt out of the battle over the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. 

The bill has pitted Republican Gov. Rick Perry and trial lawyer Steve Mostyn, the largest Democratic donor in Texas, against one another, and it is a key reason that lawmakers are in a special legislative session.

Texas got one step closer today to becoming one of the few states with a rule that awards legal fees to prevailing parties in lawsuits. 

The president of Texans for Lawsuit Reform on why the group spends spend so much money on state elections, what it still wants from the Legislature, what he thinks the trial lawyers on the other side are after and what's wrong with the Democrats these days.

The tort reform state lawmakers passed in 2003 made it more difficult for patients to win damages in any health care setting, but none more so than emergency rooms, where plaintiffs must prove doctors acted with "willful and wanton" negligence. Tort reform advocates say the law is needed to protect ER doctors operating in volatile environments. But medical malpractice attorneys argue the threshold is nearly impossible to cross. “You’d have to be a Nazi death camp guard to meet this standard,” says one.

It's still poisonous in Texas politics to be painted with the trial lawyer brush.

Is a hospital bed an integral part of medical care? As a federal judge considers the constitutionality of Texas’ 2003 medical malpractice reform — and Gov. Rick Perry campaigns for more lawsuit restrictions — the state Supreme Court has ruled that hospital injuries seemingly unrelated to doctor error can fall under Texas’ stringent medical malpractice caps. Some legal observers say the decision is a perversion of legislative intent, but tort reform advocates contend the high court simply closed a huge loophole in liability reforms.

If the Larry Taylor-Steve Mostyn battle over windstorm insurance payouts wasn't a proxy war for the tort reformists and the trial lawyers before, it certainly is now.

The past president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, who testifies before two House committees today, tells the Tribune that Texas liability law shortchanges workers caught in industrial accidents — an issue of renewed interest since the Deepwater Horizon disaster. 

Curbing the practice of barratry — "ambulance chasing," in the vernacular — has prompted an uneasy alliance between tort reformers and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association: They agree on reform ... just not on the form it should take.

In the early days of the general election campaign for governor, the Perry team has been shouting it from the rooftops at the start of every press release, no matter the issue at hand: “Liberal trial lawyer Bill White …” The Democratic nominee rejects that label, which has morphed into an epithet during years of poisonous tussles over tort reform. So is he one or isn’t he? More importantly, does it matter?

Rose Vela is no stranger to challenging establishment-backed judicial candidates — and unlike most who run upstart campaigns, she wins. But this year she's taking on Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, the appointee of a governor with the most formidable political machine in recent Texas history.

It's a battle of the "reformers" — Texans for Lawsuit Reform and Texans for Insurance Reform — out in El Paso, and the two are neck-and-neck.