Two posts on tort reform,

An author from the Texas Public Policy Foundation gives it a thumbs up on its tenth anniversary.

- Click here for it.

Ten years of tort reform have provided greater access to health care and helped make Texas the nation’s leading job producer. Indeed, by recognizing the causal connection between economic prosperity and efficient, fair courts, the Texas legislature passed and Governor Rick Perry signed House Bill 4 (HB4)—powerful tort reform legislation that is the foundation of the Texas economic miracle. Yet, despite the awesome economic growth and increased access to health care triggered by HB4, members of the trial bar are still working to overturn this reform. While Texans should stand their ground and rebuff efforts to undo HB4’s successful tort reforms, all Americans should take notice of Texas’s remarkable transformation and look to enact similar reforms in their own states.

 A critic of Missouri's effort to do the same argues that tort reform violates the 7th Amendment.

- Click here for that.

The 7th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides for the right of citizens to have their disputes tried to a jury of their peers. Under the Missouri Constitution, “the right to trial by jury as heretofore enjoyed shall remain inviolate“.

Inviolate. That is not a word used very often in today’s language. “Inviolate” means “free from violation, injury, or outrage” and, alternatively, as “not infringed.”

And yet, our constitutional right to jury trial is under attack nearly constantly in legislatures across the country. Yesterday, Governor Jay Nixon vetoed two attempts to violate, injure, and infringe upon Missourian’s right to jury trial.

SB 847 would give a negligent defendant a discount on paying damages based on insurance or benefits purchased or obtained by the injured victim. This bill would have taken the insurance paid for by the victimand given those benefits to the defendant.
Ridiculous.

From the Houston Chronicle: How a wayward cow could change Texas' tort reform law

Laws can be interpreted creatively if it benefits the client.

- Click here fore the article.

On its face, it is a straightforward case. A west Texas farmer's cattle got out of their pasture, roamed onto a rural road and caused a car crash. A man injured in the crash sued the farmer for negligence.

Thanks to some outlandish logic and an attempt to limit the farmer's liability, attorney Philip Russ has turned the case into somewhat of a referendum on the limits of the 2003 tort reform law, which heavily regulated medical malpractice lawsuits and capped damages for pain and suffering.

Russ is seeking to get the negligence suit against his client dismissed, arguing that since the farmer is a retired doctor and the cows were under his care, it should have been filed as a medical malpractice suit. Because it was not, he argues, his client should not be liable for the injured man's hospital bills.

Besides acting in the best interests of his client, Russ, an Amarillo attorney who more often represents plaintiffs, is hoping his ploy also will illustrate something he says is even more ridiculous: the legal system's current interpretation of the state's landmark tort reform law.

Increasingly, he argues, defense attorneys are resorting to twisted logic to have cases classified as medical malpractice suits as a way of limiting the amount of damages for which their clients would be liable.