Texas Watch—Consumer Protection. Corporate Accountability. Citizen Advocacy.

Our new report about the Texas Supreme Court’s pro-defendant record is already getting attention from the media. Check out the story from the Texas Tribune and take a listen to Texas Watch’s executive director Alex Winslow discuss the report’s findings with Scott Braddock on News 92fm this morning. Read More »

In the last 10 years, the majority of Texas Supreme Court decisions have favored corporate interests over consumers, and the panel of judges has repeatedly overstepped its authority by overturning jury verdicts and interpreting the law to benefit the rich, according to a scathing report set to be released today by consumer advocacy group Texas Watch.

“The Texas Supreme Court has marched in lock-step to consistently and overwhelmingly reward corporate defendants and the government at the expense of Texas families,” the report says.

Texas Watch says in its study, which reviewed court decisions in more than 624 cases in the past 10 years, that the trend started when Gov. Rick Perry began appointing Supreme Court justices in 2000. The report argues that data from court rulings shows that Perry’s appointees “corporatized the court.” But the court, a former justice and conservative groups disagree with the report’s conclusions, arguing that a statistical analysis doesn’t provide enough context.

The state’s highest civil court ruled in favor of defendants — mostly corporations and government entities — in about 74 percent of the 624 consumer cases brought before the panel in the last decade, according to the report.

Alex Winslow, executive director of Texas Watch, said the high court’s nine justices, who are all Republicans, are too similar to one another. Many represented corporations in court before they became justices, and 85 percent of the time, they agreed with one another.

“There’s not the kind of deliberative discussion and debate you’d like to see in the highest court in the state,” Winslow said. “There’s no way for the law to evolve.”

Enlarge Source: Texas Watch

The court has overturned jury decisions 74 percent of the time, according to the report, and it interprets the law “broadly or narrowly, as the circumstances warrant, to reach a result that favors the powerful.”

“The court is not giving that proper deference to a jury,” Winslow said.

Bill Peacock, vice president of research at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said he doesn’t think the large percentage of defendant wins means that the Supreme Court favors corporations. He attributed the numbers to the court interpreting laws that the Legislature has passed to limit frivolous lawsuits, which are often brought by consumers against businesses.

“The fact that more corporations are winning before the Supreme Court shows that the Supreme Court is doing its job,” Peacock said.

In a case the Texas Watch report notes as particularly anti-consumer, John Summers sued Entergy. That company owned the power plant he worked for in Bridge City, where he was injured on the job. But Summers didn’t work directly for Entergy; he was hired by a contractor to work at Entergy’s plant. The question before the Supreme Court was whether Summers could sue Entergy even though that company did not hire him.

The court decided that the contractor’s employees were also Entergy’s employees and so Summers’ injuries were covered under Entergy’s worker’s compensation plan. As a result, he could not sue Entergy for negligence in his injuries.

Winslow said that is a “cake and eat it too situation” for employers. Employees of contractors will receive less compensation for their injuries, because they are considered employees of the larger corporation for purposes of workers’ compensation. But the contractors’ employees won’t get the same kind of health insurance and other benefits that corporate employees receive.

Enlarge Source: Texas Watch

Osler McCarthy, the Supreme Court staff attorney for public information, disagreed. He said people often read cases too simply and decide that they have much broader implications than they actually do.

“What I see the court doing is trying to follow the law,” he said. “The statute allowed one company to be general contractor and premises owner.”

Former Supreme Court Justice Scott Brister also said evaluating the Supreme Court isn’t as simple as compiling statistics. The justices, he said, only consider cases in which they might reverse the lower court’s decision.

“They only look at 10 percent of the cases. They’re not going to take a case that looks right, and the consumer won,” Brister said.

Brister denied Texas Watch’s assertion that the court favors corporations.

“We don’t look at a case and say, ‘Where can we help a company?’” he said. “We say, ‘Where does something look wrong?’”

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/texas-courts/texas-supreme-court/texas-watch-claims-supreme-court-favors-businesses/.

So, just what is a junk insurance policy? Sen. Leticia Van de Putte said she’s been hearing from constituents who are fed up with junk policies with what she called “luscious exclusions” and “skyrocketing” deductibles. She asked Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman about this at a recent committee hearing. Kitzman was unaware of the problem.

Well, we are aware of the problem. So, we sent Sen. Van de Putte a letter outlining the problem (and we sent a copy to Commissioner Kitzman too). Read More »

Another solid year by USAA means its employees will receive healthy bonuses once again.

The San Antonio financial services and insurance company has awarded employees a bonus equal to 18.4 percent of their annual base salary.

The bonus matches last year’s payout, which was the second-highest ever awarded by USAA. The highest bonus, 18.8 percent, was given two years ago.

At Texas Watch, we hear from families virtually every day who have endured a never-ending line of home insurance rate increases. In fact, The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that Texans are paying the highest home insurance premiums in the nation. Sadly, this isn’t new. Texans have paid among the nation’s highest rates for as long as anyone can remember. Homeowners are also angered by the growing number of junk insurance policies that are flooding the market.

Read More »

AUSTIN — Texas homeowners paid the most expensive insurance premiums in the country for the second year in a row, although average premiums in the state have not been increasing as sharply as in other states, according to new figures from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

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“For as long as anyone can remember, Texas has had among the highest insurance rates in the nation,” said Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, a consumer group active in insurance issues.

“The flip side is that coverage for most homeowners is getting slashed while their rates keep going up. With higher deductibles, expanded exclusions and a growing number of junk policies, Texas policyholders are being forced to pay more for less,” he said. “It’s like being forced to pay Cadillac prices and getting stuck with a clunker.”

Winslow said the situation would not improve until the Legislature beefs up laws regulating insurers and the commissioner of insurance “gets tough” with companies.

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

USAA home and condo insurance policyholders in Texas are facing another rate increase, the third announced hike in the past 12 months.

The San Antonio-based insurer on Friday announced it plans to raise rates an average of 5.7 percent, starting May 14. The increase is being implemented to offset rising noncatastrophic claims costs, USAA spokesman Paul Berry said.

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Other major carriers recently have filed for significant rate increases, [Alex Winslow of Texas Watch] said. Last month, Texas’ new insurance commissioner, Eleanor Kitzman, allowed State Farm Insurance to raise homeowners’ rates an average of 10 percent and to increase deductibles, the Dallas Morning News reported. After factoring higher discounts, State Farm said the actual increase would average 1.4 percent.

In response to USAA’s latest increase, Winslow said, “We’re going to continue to see these kind of rate increases until either the (state) Legislature does something to rein in the insurance companies or, more importantly, the insurance commissioner does her job and starts to decline some of these rate hikes.” He called Kitzman a “rubber stamp for the insurance industry.”

Read More: San Antonio Express-News

AUSTIN — Allstate Insurance is raising premiums for homeowners coverage in January, with increases in the Dallas-Fort Worth area ranging from 3.5 percent to 7 percent under a rate plan filed with the Texas Department of Insurance.

The company’s filing indicated that customers of Allstate Texas Lloyds will see a 3.5 percent jump in rates in North Texas and 5.7 percent statewide, while those insured by Allstate Fire and Casualty face an increase of up to 7 percent in North Texas and 9.8 percent statewide.

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“At what point is enough enough,” said Alex Winslow of Texas Watch, which closely follows insurance issues in the state.

“This is exactly what we expected would happen after the commissioner refused to stand up to State Farm on their rate plan,” he said, referring to recent premium increase by the state’s largest insurer.

“Now we have another big insurance carrier coming in for another big rate increase. Consumers shouldn’t be surprised, but we should expect better.”

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)

AUSTIN — Attorneys for State Farm Insurance asked a state appeals court Wednesday to cancel a lower court order that would require Texas’ largest insurer to refund nearly $350 million to its customers.

But state attorneys and the consumer advocate for insurance called on the 3rd Court of Appeals to uphold the order and help bring an end to what they called eight years of stalling by State Farm. The allegations that the insurer overcharged for homeowners policy premiums were first lodged in 2003.

Read More: The Dallas Morning News (subscription required)