Texas Watch » Workplace Safety

BP Emails Reveal Knowledge Of Disaster’s Potential

caroline — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:17:37 +0000

On the day the Deepwater Horizon sank in the Gulf of Mexico, BP officials warned in an internal email conversation that if the well was not protected by the blow-out preventer at the drill site, crude oil could burst into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 3.4 million gallons a day, an amount a million gallons higher than what the U.S. government ultimately estimated spilled daily from the site.

The memo, which BP agreed to release Friday as part of federal court proceedings, suggests BP managers recognized the potential of the disaster in its early hours, and the company officials sought to make sure that the model-developed information wasn’t shared with those outside the company. The emails also suggest BP was having heated discussions with Coast Guard officials over the potential of the oil spill.

The memo was released as part of the court proceedings to determine the division of responsibility for the nation’s worst offshore oil disaster, which began when the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, 2010, killing 11 men about 50 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast. The first phase of the trial is set to start Feb. 27.

The Court’s Defenders: Polluters, Big Insurance, Corporate Wrongdoers

Texas Watch — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:36:03 +0000

On the heels of a 10-year review by Court Watch that found the Texas Supreme Court routinely sides with big government and big corporate interests over everyday Texans, the very special interests that benefit from the Court’s pro-defendant penchant rose to the court’s defense. None of the attacks, however, were able to discredit Court Watch’s findings or the report’s conclusions. Instead, critics are resorting to condescension and ad hominem attacks.

The report, “Thumbs on the Scale: A Retrospective of the Texas Supreme Court, 2000-2010,” was released last week by Court Watch, a project of the Texas Watch Foundation. Among the report’s findings was that consumers lost an average of 79% of cases at the high court and that the court overturned 74% of local juries who found in favor of consumers.

“The Supreme Court is hiding behind the very special interests that it routinely protects,” said Alex Winslow, director of Court Watch. “The lobbyists for polluters, insurance companies, and other corporate wrongdoers can’t dispute our findings. So, they have resorted to condescension and ad hominem attacks. Texans will see right through it.”

Among those attempting to attack Court Watch is the special interest group known as “Texans for Lawsuit Reform,” a Houston-based group run by a handful of corporate chieftains. TLR’s board includes individuals who represent industries that routinely put workers, consumers, and small business owners at risk of needless injury or financial devastation. TLR has spent millions in political races over the last 20 years to dismantle the civil justice system in Texas. This effort was bankrolled by industries including big oil, big insurance, and big banks, along with chemical, homebuilding, and pharmaceutical interests and their lobbyists and trade groups.

One well respected political columnist wrote that the Texas Supreme Court is “a wholly owned subsidiary of Texans for Lawsuit Reform.”

“When TLR and its ilk lob ad hominem attacks in defense of the Texas Supreme Court, consider the source,” said Winslow. “TLR represents the very interests that have reaped the greatest reward from the Texas Supreme Court’s anti-consumer bias. The Court’s pro-defendant penchant has put money in the pockets of mega-corporations who have, in turn, filled TLR’s coffers.”

Additionally, Scott Brister, a former Supreme Court justice turned lawyer for mega-polluter and work safety violator BP, spoke like someone who still has influence over the Court when he said that “We don’t look at a case and say, ‘Where can we help a company?’” (emphasis added)

Finally, the Court’s taxpayer-funded spokesman, Osler McCarthy, arrogantly dismisses criticism of the Court by attacking the report’s methodology of reviewing only those cases in which an opinion has been rendered, suggesting that including a cases denied review by the Court would balance the results. Mr. McCarthy ignores the fact that research from law professor David Anderson has already concluded that: “The cases in which the supreme court denied review were not predominantly plaintiff victories, and plaintiff success in the petitions-denied cases does not offset the defendant success rate in the decided cases.”

“Texas families deserve a fair shake at the Texas Supreme Court. Our research shows they just aren’t getting it,” said Winslow. “Texans deserve a Supreme Court willing to stand up to the special interests – not one that hides behind them.”

Texas Court Watch is a project of the Texas Watch Foundation, a non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization. Content that appears on this page has been produced by the Texas Watch Foundation for research and public education purposes.

AUDIO: The Texas Supreme Court Has a Profound Effect on the Everyday Lives of Texans

Texas Watch — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:36:28 +0000

The Texas Supreme Court has a profound effect on the everyday lives of Texans. It is the court of last resort for non-criminal matters in the state. But according to a scathing report released this week by the advocacy group Texas Watch, over the last 10 years, the majority of Texas Supreme Court decisions have favored corporate interests over consumers. And the panel of judges, according to the report, has repeatedly overstepped its authority by overturning jury verdicts and interpreting the law to benefit the rich.

Listen: Texas Public Radio (Texas Matters, Segment 3)

Report: Texas Supreme Court Sides Against Consumers In 4 Out of 5 Cases

Texas Watch — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:33:03 +0000

Last August, ThinkProgress highlighted a Texas Watch report showing that the Texas Supreme Court “sided with consumers in 27 percent of cases involving an individual against a corporation or government agency — and it reversed jury verdicts in 72 percent of cases.” A new report by that same organization shows that the court’s favoritism towards corporations is now even worse.

AUDIO: Texas Families Deserve a Fair Shake at Texas Supreme Court & They Aren’t Getting It

Texas Watch — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:30:08 +0000

Listen to Court Watch director Alex Winslow talk about Court Watch’s latest report with Kristen Flowers of KTRH radio in Houston.

“Texas families deserve a fair shake when they go to the courthouse. And, when they make it to the highest court in the land, they’re just not getting that fair shake.”

Woe Is the Consumer Who Has to Go to the Texas Supreme Court

Texas Watch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:36:15 +0000

Woe is the injured consumer or medical patient in Texas who brings a lawsuit against a big corporation or the government. A new report out from the nonprofit advocacy group Texas Watch has taken a hard look at more than 600 decisions by the Texas Supreme Court over the past decade and found that consumers and plaintiffs are routinely taking it on the chin. And consumers are losing far more often in the court than they were before short-lived GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry became governor.

Since 2005, consumers have lost nearly 80 percent of Texas Supreme Court cases in which a consumer was pitted against a big corporation or the government. Most of the time, the consumer plaintiffs had already prevailed before a jury—the high court overturned jury verdicts in 74 percent of consumer cases, with very little dissent.

Texas Watch attributes the massive scale-tilting to the fact that the court is now dominated by judges who were appointed by Perry starting in 2000. Six of the nine judges on the all-Republican court were initially appointed by Perry. In Texas, the judges are elected, but when a vacancy occurs, a governor can appoint a judge to fill out the remaining term, a move that all but guarantees the judge will prevail in the general election. And in Texas, Republican judges who’ve wanted to retire have often done so mid-term, allowing Perry to appoint their replacements.

Report: Supreme Court Pro-Business Bias Hurts Consumers

Texas Watch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:03:42 +0000

The Texas Supreme Court over the last decade has morphed into an activist court driven by ideoloy and acting to benefit corporate interests, according to a report released today by consumer advocacy group Texas Watch.

The scathing report is the result of a review of 264 court decisions over the past 10 years and paints a picture of a court concerned only with giving more power to the powerful and trampling on the interests of Texas families in the process. The 9-judge panel, all Republican, “employs twisted logic and eviscerates long-standing precedent to achieve poltiical ends,” the report says.

Texas Watch found that when Gov. Rick Perry began making appointments in 2000, his picks made the court decidely more pro-business than it had been under George W. Bush, “subverting the rule of law from within and effectively turning the granite walls of the court into a mausoleum for plaintiffs.”

Audio: Braddock & Winslow Talk SCOTX

Texas Watch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:31:03 +0000

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.

Report: Decade-Long Review Shows Texas Supreme Court Is Activist, Ideological

Texas Watch — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:29:51 +0000

The Texas Supreme Court has a long history of favoring corporate defendants over families and small businesses, according to a decade-long review of the Court’s decision making by Court Watch, a project of the non-profit Texas Watch Foundation.

Court Watch reviewed the 624 cases involving consumers decided by the Court between 2000 and 2010. The report, “Thumbs on the Scale: A Retrospective of the Texas Supreme Court, 2000-2010,” finds that the state’s high court for civil matters “has marched in lock-step to consistently and overwhelmingly reward corporate defendants and the government at the expense of Texas families.”

“The Texas Supreme Court is an activist, results-oriented body that over the last 10 years has developed into a safe haven for corporate defendants at the expense of individuals, families, and small business owners,” said Alex Winslow, director of Court Watch. “The statistics speak for themselves. The court’s pro-defendant ideology can not be disputed.”

Among the report’s findings are:

Corporate and government defendants prevail in an average of 74% of cases annually.

Consumers have lost 79% of cases in which they were pitted against a corporate or government defendant.

These findings lead Court Watch to conclude: “The Texas Supreme Court has become a reliable friend to those who seek to escape the consequences of their actions; its justices are the ultimate guardians for the moneyed and powerful who wish to shirk responsibility.”

The report focuses on the decade beginning in 2000 because it reflects a paradigm shift. In 2000, Rick Perry became governor. His appointees to the Court have taken it in a decidedly activist and ideological turn.

Justices appointed to the Court by Governor Rick Perry have sided with consumers an average of just 29% of the time.

Despite a constitutional provision limiting its jurisdiction to questions of law – not fact – the Court has routinely overturned decisions made by local juries. Even Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson admonished the Court in a 2004 dissenting opinion, writing: “This Court is constitutionally bound to conduct only a legal – not factual – sufficiency review.”

Texas Supreme Court has overturned local jury decisions in consumer cases an average of 74% of the time since 2004.

Court Watch writes that “The jury is our smallest, most direct, and least corrupted form of government. … However, the Texas Supreme Court has displayed a fundamental disregard for juries.”

Court Watch has been monitoring and reporting on the Texas Supreme Court and the impact its decisions have on Texas families since 1996. During that time, Court Watch has issued an annual list of the most anti-consumer cases of a given year. In keeping with that tradition, this report includes a “Dirty Dozen of the Decade,” a representative sampling of the most dangerous, far-reaching decisions made by the Texas Supreme Court during the last decade.

Thumbs on the Scale CtWatch Jan2012 Final

The Terrible Texas 5: The Worst of the Corporate Immunity Agenda

Texas Watch — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:21:11 +0000

Over the last decade, Texas politicians and lobbyists have enacted a series of devastating legal changes that severely restrict the legal rights of individuals, families, and small businessowners. These changes have made Texas a more dangerous place in which the value of accountability has been discarded.

Here are our picks for the Terrible Texas 5, a sampling of the worst of the corporate immunity agenda in our state.

Arbitrary Damage Limits: Texas has imposed an arbitrary, one-size-fits-all restriction on what a patient can recover from a negligent physician’s liability insurance company. This effectively deprives many patients and their families of due process without fulfilling the promise to improve access to care for rural and under-served communities or to reduce the cost of care for families and taxpayers.
Nursing Homes: Texas allows nursing homes to “go bare” and forgo liability insurance coverage altogether. Additionally, the Texas Supreme Court determined that virtually any claim against a nursing home — even spider bites and sexual assault — is considered medical negligence, giving nursing home operators even greater protections against accountability. Texas ranks second-to-last in nursing home staffing ratios and a quarter of all nursing home facilities in Texas have the nation’s worst quality rating.
Dangerous Products: Despite their claims to support local control, Texas politicians force state courts to defer to unelected, unaccountable federal bureaucrats to determine the safety of a product. If a product meets federal guidelines it is assumed to be safe. This deprives state judges and juries of their ability to independently determine the safety of a particular product.
Asbestos Poisoning: Texas has placed severe restrictions on workers who have been poisoned by exposure to asbestos by imposing impairment criteria that exceed those established by medical authorities and placing stringent filing requirements on sickened workers.
Winners Pay: In Texas, if a plaintiff rejects a defendant’s settlement offer so that he or she can make their case before a jury of their peers, they could be forced to pay a defendant’s legal costs even if they win in court. In other words, a plaintiff could bring a valid claim that is approved by a judge, have a jury rule in his or her favor and award damages — only to be forced to pay the wrongdoer’s legal costs, erasing the entire judgment in the process.

Learn more by reading our comprehensive report on how Texas politicians and lobbyists have imposed the corporate immunity agenda on Texas families.