The first half of the 1990s bore witness to the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the inception of the Gulf War, the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Nelson Mandela’s release, and the premiere of the World Wide Web’s as an internet service. A lot has changed in the 30-ish years since then, including the practice of law. The three trends that have had the most influence on changes to Texas personal injury law are technology, judicial activism, and tort reform.
The Centers for Disease Control recently published statistics showing that about 30,800,000 throughout the United States visit a hospital emergency room every year due to accidental injuries. In other words, roughly 10% of the country’s population sustains injuries serious enough to warrant emergency medical aid.
With figures as high as these, it won’t be long before you or a member of your family is injured in an accident. When this happens, you need to know who to turn to.
Choosing an experienced Texas personal injury lawyer with a track record of large financial recoveries will ensure that you get the best possible outcome for your case.
Technology
Modern technology is forcing lawyers to ask a lot of questions that are not always so easy to answer. For instance, if a driverless vehicle crashes on the interstate, who is liable? Is it the vehicle’s manufacturer? The guy who designed the software? Is the vehicle owner liable for anything? Driverless vehicles are still a burgeoning technology but are expected to see widespread use by the end of the decade. Lawyers are already having to anticipate problems such as these, and the faster technology develops, the more challenging things are going to become.
Additionally, social media and the internet have forever changed the way people hire attorneys, the ways in which attorneys communicate with their clients, and the role discovery plays in a case. Text messages, emails, car GPS and cell phone data, social media, black box data, traffic and dash cams, and many other electronic developments have forever changed how personal injury cases are investigated. All of these things have to be identified, studied, and indexed in order to accurately determine liability in any personal injury case.
Judicial Activism
The influence of judicial activism is best represented in the increase of accepted appeals and the nearly ubiquitous reversal of trial judgments favoring personal injury plaintiffs.
In the past two decades, we have seen a tumultuous increase in appellate courts exercising their own brand of end-result-oriented justice under the guise of “expert” testimony and qualification. A trial judge decides whether or not expert evidence is admissible, a jury hears the evidence and finds for the plaintiff, but during the appeal, the appellate court finds the expert evidence lacking, reverses the jury’s decision, and renders a new judgment in favor of the defendant, thus making the system one in which a defendant can’t lose. Maybe they win their case at the trial level, maybe they don’t. Even if they lose though, they always have a second chance to win on appeal.
In the end, this mixture of judicial activism and tort reform has done more than simply reduce the number of cases that are filed, but also the number of cases that are tried, and the overall value of even the most worthy among them.
Tort Reform
Tort reform is about more than mere legislative changes to the law. Tort reform is a political crusade prompted by special interest groups. It has transformed the way personal injury law is practiced, as well as the attitudes of judges and jurors.
Praised as ridding the legal system of frivolous cases, tort reform was intended to unburden the courts so that worthwhile cases would receive justice in an efficient and timely fashion. Sure, there were a few arguably frivolous cases along the way, but surely nobody is making the argument that the tens of thousands of personal injury lawsuits no longer filed in Texas were all frivolous. Nope, tort reform has done more to slam the courthouse doors in the faces of deserving victims than it has ever done to eradicate frivolous claims. It is, in fact, the inverse of the idea that it is better for 10 guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be punished. In this version, 10 victims are deprived of justice so that a single frivolous case doesn’t waste anyone’s time.
Some consequences of tort reform in Texas involve mesothelioma victims having to seek justice in another state because Texas has the highest burden of proof in the U.S.. Tort reform has also given transgressors the benefit of the plaintiff having insurance under “paid or incurred;” higher pre-trial costs in the form of discovery and experts; and eliminated small personal injury cases and workers’ compensation as a practicum for young attorneys.
The public relations enterprise advocating for tort reform has drastically impacted the perspectives of potential jurors toward specific damages allowed by law, like emotional trauma. It has been instrumental to the view, held by many, that personal injury attorneys are ambulance chasers, and their clients are lottery winners.
So much pertaining to practicing law has changed during the past few years. Like most things, some of the changes are good, some are bad, and some things have not changed at all; like the fact that good attorneys working good cases can still get meaningful results. When the right case falls onto the shoulders of attorneys with the resources and experience to battle a multi-billion-dollar insurance company or some other corporate goliath, justice is still attainable.
Personal injury law is complex, and getting what you deserve often means dealing with insurance carriers, negotiating a fair settlement, and sometimes filing a lawsuit. It can be difficult to know exactly what you are entitled to. Your best option for a successful recovery is to consult with a Texas personal injury lawyer.
