Important News from Your Texas Accident Lawyer

Texas Legislature to Debate Bill that Steals Your Rights

Posted on May 05, 2011

In yet another example of the Texas Legislature siding with the pro-insurance and pro-corporation lobbyists scurring around Austin, today the latest rights stealing legislation will be debated. Put simply, loser pays means families pay.

The lobbyists in Austin are once again providing their corporate clients with human shields - you and your family. This time, they are socializing the cost to everyone when they cause needless death, injury and financial ruin. HB 274 is an un-American, un-Texan scheme that threatens all families and small business owners with the possiblity of being on the hook for the legal costs of insurance companies and multi-national corporations when you bring a valid suit against them. That is right, even if you win, you could have to pay the other side's legal costs.

It is tough guy handling of the little guy. Like a mafia hustle. In this instance, lets say you and your family are injured in a car accident. Fault clearly is on the other driver. Let's say they rear-ended you and your family while you sit at a stop light. If the at-fault driver's insurance company denies your valid claim you would face the threat of paying the oturageous legal costs of the insurance company's lawyer army or accepting the low-ball offer the insurance company makes. If you do go forward, even if you win you would have to pay the costs of the insurance company or mutli-national corporation in certain instances.

Sound crazy? It is. Does this sound, well, absolutely stupid? Well it is and it has been tried before with terrible consequences.

Florida's experience with a scheme similar to the one being debated by our legislature was so bad that lawmakers there repealed it just five years later. As the Duke Law Journal notes, proponents are "diplomatically silent about Florida's unsuccessful experience." A former president of the nation's oldest association of civil defense lawyers put it bluntly: "They tried it in Florida, and it was a disaster."

Known as the "British Rule," this concept was roundly rejected by our nation's founders more than two centuries ago because it guts individual liberty. In recent years, however, Britain and other countries have begun to rethink the wisdom of this system. In fact, the British Ministry of Justice recently commissioned a report that recommends that Britain scrap its current system in favor of the "American Rule" in which both parties are responsible for their own legal costs. The Economist magazine proclaimed that "every citizen in the land would, at last, have a fair opportunity to have a case heard in the nation's courts."

The bottom line is that Texas families already face significant barriers to accessing the constitutional promise of a right to Trial by Jury. Adopting a scheme that has a dubious history and is designed to force families and small businesses with valid claims to weigh the possibility of paying the legal costs of multi-national corporations is not in the best interests of public safety, public justice, or public policy.

Please take a moment and click on this link to get more information and see what you can do to stop this horrific anti-family bill. Our Board Certified Attorneys, Chad Points and Tony Denena, are doing everything they can to stand with the citizens of Texas to fight this bill. Join us. Call us today to find out more information. 877-307-9500.