House passes injury lawsuit reform bill
AUSTIN (KXAN) — An injury lawsuit reform bill inched closer to becoming law when it passed the Texas House in a vote of 94-52.
The House took up Senate Bill 30 late Monday, debating several amendments. Under the bill, a jury would hear if an attorney referred their client — and others over the past two years — to a doctor. That provider must submit an affidavit that treatment was reasonable. The bill called for medical services to be reimbursed based off rates paid by Medicare and workers’ compensation insurance.
The bill was backed by Texans for Lawsuit Reform, which has pushed for bills this legislative session — from trucking accidents to personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits — aimed at lowering insurance costs and stopping what it calls “nuclear verdicts.” Critics say new legal maneuvers would make it harder for victims to receive justice.
“Even though the proponents of these bills talk about lowering insurance costs, the bills never mention the word ‘insurance.’ The bills don’t do anything to insurance companies,” said Ware Wendell with the consumer and patient advocacy group Texas Watch. “They just infringe upon our rights.”
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had listed SB 30 as a priority bill this session along with the goal of “curbing nuclear verdicts”
TLR said the bill targets what it calls inflated medical costs that are presented at trial, which attorneys and medical providers dispute.
“It will limit the ability of some lawyers and collaborating health care providers to cheat,” TLR General Counsel Lee Parsley told lawmakers in March.
Parsley said the bill does not cap damages or “prevent an injured person from recovering the full measure of compensatory and non-economic damages.” The Lone Star Economic Alliance, which represents a coalition of Texas businesses, said the bill addresses “the rising wave of abusive lawsuits,” reduces pressure to settle “meritless claims.”
“Texas is known as the best state for business,” LSEA previously said in a statement. “Unfortunately, our legal system has become a liability in an otherwise strong pro-business climate, and if we fail to fix it, we threaten the competitive advantages that generations of Texans have worked hard to build.”
Wendell, however, said the bill creates unnecessary “burdens for patients” when it comes to how medical costs and damages can be presented to a jury.
“It’s really a giveaway to the insurance companies,” said Wendell, “who aren’t going to have to pay full medical costs under the bill.”
The Senate version of the bill required corroborating medical evidence or “prior consistent statements” related to pain and suffering. Survivors of childhood sexual assault had pushed back on that in recent months, worried that would make it harder to hold their abusers accountable in a civil lawsuit.
Among those who spoke out was a 20-year-old who told a Senate panel he was repeatedly raped and groomed at 11-years-old by his adopted step-father, who is serving time in prison.
“This abuse was not just sexual but also physical, verbal and emotional and the effects will continue for the rest of my life,” the survivor told lawmakers. “When I think back on what happened to me, I can only describe it as a personal hell. How do you put a cap on seven years of hell?”
The bill heads back to the Senate to approve the changes before it can be sent to the governor.
