LawTalkers  

Go Back   LawTalkers

» Site Navigation
 > FAQ
» Online Users: 260
0 members and 260 guests
No Members online
Most users ever online was 4,499, 10-26-2015 at 07:55 AM.
Thread: Texas Politics
View Single Post
Old 05-14-2003, 07:50 AM   #3
evenodds
prodigal poster
 
evenodds's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: gate 27
Posts: 2,710
Texas Tort Reform

Senators forge ahead on lawsuit reform bill
By David Pasztor
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Lawsuit reform, one of the most contentious and far-reaching endeavors during this year's legislative session, is finally headed to the state Senate floor.

After more than a month of public hearings and technical fiddling, the Senate State Affairs Committee on Tuesday unanimously approved its version of House Bill 4, a massive bill that rewrites portions of the state's civil justice laws in an effort to cut down on nuisance lawsuits and runaway jury verdicts.

The committee also unanimously approved a proposed constitutional amendment that supporters say is crucial to the portion of the bill aimed at lowering medical malpractice insurance premiums.

"I feel like I just gave birth to an elephant," joked committee Chairman Bill Ratliff, R-Mount Pleasant, who presided over laborious revisions to the hastily passed House version of the bill.

As modified by Ratliff and the committee, one of the bill's major components — caps on damage awards for such things as pain and suffering in malpractice lawsuits — has been revised.

Reform advocates, medical groups and doctors have consistently called for a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damage awards in all malpractice cases, a provision contained in the House version.

But under the Senate version, injured patients would be able to receive up to $750,000 in noneconomic damages if there are multiple defendants in a case, such as numerous doctors, nurses or hospitals.

The bill still caps the liability of any individual doctor or nurse at $250,000 and caps the liability of a single institution such as a hospital or nursing home at $500,000.

Full text: http://www.statesman.com/legislature.../0514tort.html
evenodds is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.0.1

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 02:53 AM.