27-05-2025
House takes up injury lawsuit reform bill
AUSTIN (KXAN) — An injury lawsuit reform bill critics say will make it harder for victims to receive justice inched closer to becoming law when the Texas House voted to pass it 94-52 late Monday evening.
Under Senate Bill 30, 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 and medical expenses should be based off rates paid by Medicare and workers' compensation insurance.
The House debated and added multiple amendments to the bill, which was backed by Texans for Lawsuit Reform. This legislative session, TLR has pushed for bills related to trucking accidents and personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits aimed at lowering insurance costs and stopping what it calls 'nuclear verdicts.'
'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' large jury verdicts.
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TLR said the bill targets what it believes are often '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' and reduces pressure to settle 'meritless claims.'
Last year, a KXAN investigation first revealed LSEA's intention to push for more lawsuit reforms.
'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, who aren't going to have to pay full medical costs under the bill,' said Wendell.
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The Senate version of the bill required corroborating medical evidence, or 'prior consistent statements,' for a jury to consider pain and suffering damages. Survivors of childhood sexual assault pushed back on that in recent months, worried it would make it harder to hold abusers accountable in a civil cases.
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 will get another procedural vote on Tuesday before heading back to the Senate for final approval.
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