Op-Ed: Lawsuit abuse hurts affordability in Texas

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Civil court system abuse is rampant. Trial attorneys routinely file numerous, often unsupportable claims across a range of jurisdictions, abusing the multidistrict litigation process designed to streamline complex federal cases to target and overwhelm American companies. 

An estimated 70% of federal cases now involve such litigation and target a wide range of critical industries, from pharmaceutical companies to American fire-truck manufacturers to healthcare. 

For a while, Texas looked like it had solved its lawsuit problem. In 2003, lawmakers passed House Bill 4, and voters approved Proposition 12, putting limits on abusive medical liability claims and restoring some sanity to a system that had spun badly out of control. 

The payoff was real. Liability premiums for physicians fell sharply, Texas was later removed from the medical liability crisis list, and the old doctor-flight problem eased. Reform worked. But Texas never finished the job.

What lawmakers fixed in medical malpractice, the broader litigation industry adapted around. Last session, Senate Bill 30 gave lawmakers an opportunity to narrow the use of inflated medical charges in civil cases. However, the broader reform push stalled and never became law. 

Today, Texas is once again facing a lawsuit problem – this time with a new wave of nuclear verdicts, inflated damage models, aggressive venue tactics, and growing pressure from outside litigation financing. 

That failure matters because the costs are no longer theoretical. Texas tort costs reached nearly $38 billion in 2022, or about $4,594 per household, and those costs grew at a 9.7 percent annual rate from 2016 to 2022 and continue to grow faster than both inflation and the broader economy. 

A separate Texas estimate on the broader economic drag found excessive tort litigation is associated with about $60.8 billion in lost gross state product and nearly 509,000 jobs. That is not a courthouse sideshow. That is a major tax on growth, jobs and affordability.

While the magnitude may be different, the direction is hard to deny: lawsuit abuse hits Texas businesses and consumers hard. When lawsuits become leverage rather than justice, the costs do not stay in the courtroom. They show up in higher insurance premiums, more defensive business practices, delayed expansion, and higher prices for families. 

The hidden tax from lawsuit abuse is felt in grocery trips, medical bills, housing costs, and insurance premiums. In a state built on enterprise and risk-taking, that kind of drag matters. It means fewer resources for hiring, investing, innovating and serving customers. 

Small businesses already hit hard by the costs of torts are now increasingly forced to pool together just to manage insurance costs created by that liability. 

Texas already proved two decades ago that reform can work. But instead of building on that success, it let too much of the rest grow back. 

Plaintiffs’ lawyers got more creative. Damage claims got more inflated. Large verdicts became more common. And lawmakers acted as if the problem had been solved because one piece of it had been fixed in 2003. It had not.

None of this is an argument against legitimate claims. A sound tort system is essential to a free society. People who are genuinely harmed should be able to recover damages. Businesses that act negligently should be held accountable. 

But a legal system meant to deliver justice should not become a vehicle for wealth transfer, inflated billing, and economic distortion. When weak claims survive too long, when exaggerated damages become standard practice, and when litigation turns into a business model, everyone else pays.

Texas needs to remember what made reform work in the first place: fairness, predictability and clear limits that protect real victims without turning the legal system into a jackpot game. The state once led on this issue. Now it is drifting, and Texans are footing the bill.

That drift is costing families real money, hurting employers, and weakening one of the biggest advantages Texas has long had over other states: a better climate for working, investing, building and prospering.