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

Our Director of Legislative Affairs Ware Wendell gave impassioned testimony to the Senate State Affairs Committee against HB 274 yesterday.  This is the bill that immunizes polluters, insurance companies, and other corporate wrongdoers by threatening families and businesses with having to pay the bloated legal costs of corporate defendants even if they win in court.  Watch Ware’s testimony. Read More »

A coalition of organizations representing varied interests and constituencies joined forces to oppose HB 274, the so-called “loser pays” bill, today.  In a memo to the Senate State Affairs committee, the coalition wrote that “HB 274 has broad implications that devastate the legal rights of Texans of all walks of life.” Read More »

Consider these real-world horrors: A child is left in a sweltering van by inattentive, careless daycare personnel and dies.  A grandmother in a nursing home is raped by a staff member with a history of sexual offenses.  Now consider this: A bill shooting through the legislature could force the parents of that child and that elderly rape victim to pay the legal defense of the people who shattered their lives. Read More »

Under the House Rules, an emergency item is one that is “of such pressing and imperative import as to demand immediate action.”  After 20+ years of pro-defendant legal changes, Rick Perry believes that making it even more difficult for Texans with valid claims to access the legal system rises to the level of a statewide emergency.

“This is a sad state of affairs.  Rick Perry is so transparently kowtowing to the special interest lobbyists who want even more immunity protections for polluters, insurance companies, and other big corporate wrongdoers,” said Alex Winslow, executive director of the citizen advocacy group Texas Watch.  “Texas has plenty of emergencies to deal with.  Immunizing needless death, injury, or financial devastation caused by corporate wrongdoers is not one of them.” Read More »

Here we go again.  Lobbyists in Austin are once again trying to shield their corporate clients by socializing the cost when they cause needless death, injury, or financial devastation.  This time they are pushing HB 274, an un-American scheme that threatens families and small businesses with having to pay the bloated legal costs of big insurance companies and multi-national corporations.  Act Now to stop this dangerous legislation. Read More »

Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue manslaughter charges against BP Plc (BP/) managers for decisions made before the Gulf of Mexico oil well explosion last year that killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in U.S. history, according to three people familiar with the matter.

U.S. investigators also are examining statements made by leaders of the companies involved in the spill — including former BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward — during congressional hearings last year to determine whether their testimony was at odds with what they knew, one of the people said. All three spoke on condition they not be named because they weren’t authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Charging individuals would be significant to environmental- safety cases because it might change behavior, said Jane Barrett, a law professor at the University of Maryland.

“They typically don’t prosecute employees of large corporations,” said Barrett, who spent 20 years prosecuting environmental crimes at the federal and state levels. “You’ve got to prosecute the individuals in order to maximize, and not lose, the deterrent effect.”

The Justice Department in June said it opened criminal and civil investigations into the spill, which began after an April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig that London-based BP leased from Transocean Ltd. (RIG), of Vernier, Switzerland. The department filed a civil suit against BP in December and hasn’t filed criminal charges. It’s continuing to investigate.

Read More: Bloomberg

It’s that time of year again. The weather’s warming up, spring is in the air, and your brackets are all filled out. That’s right, it’s March Madness time!  But we’re not just talking about basketball. Here in Austin, there’s madness brewing inside the Capitol. Legislators just finished filing all their bills for this session, and some of those bills could be very dangerous for everyday Texans.

Watch the latest installment of our Session Watch 2011 video series as our Director of Legislative Affairs,Ware Wendell hoops it up and gives you the rundown on two particularly bad bills. Read More »

Yesterday, in a key House committee lawmakers heard testimony related to a cornerstone of the corporate immunity lobby’s agenda this session, HB 2031 (aka The Corporate Cover-Up Act).  This bill would upend the rule of law.  We were there to defend public justice against this latest special interest assault. Read More »

February 22, 2008, began like any other day for José Herrera. A seasoned contract pipefitter in his late 40s, Herrera had labored in Texas refineries for two decades. The work was hard and sporadic, but on a good week, including overtime, an experienced hand like Herrera might earn $3,500, enough to provide a good life for his wife, Hortencia, and son and frequent fishing companion, José.

By late morning, Herrera and a co-worker, Aaron Salinas, had scaled a scaffold at the Citgo East refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas, and were busy preparing the Crude Unit for a procedure known as a chemical wash. At 10:35 a.m., a “nipple” — a metal piece measuring only three-quarters of an inch by 17 inches — extending from a heat exchanger broke loose, showering the two men with 550-degree oil, a lawsuit filed by Herrera and Salinas claims.

Salinas clambered down from the scaffold, escaping with burns on his back, neck and head. Herrera wasn’t as lucky. Unable to free himself from his safety harness for several minutes, he was seared badly by the oil. Someone finally cut him down, and he was airlifted to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where, for a time, doctors thought he might die. Third-degree burns covered his head, hands and arms.

Since that day three years ago, Herrera, 50, has undergone 11 operations. Doctors rebuilt his chin, transferring layers of skin from his chest and his thighs. Scar tissue prevents him from being able to close his right eye. His body temperature is constantly out of whack. “I’ve been in hell,” he said during a recent interview in Houston, near his home in Baytown, Texas. “I’m in pain every minute.”

Adding to his woes, Herrera has fallen into a gap in the protections afforded many workers injured on the job. After racking up an estimated $200,000 in medical costs and with no income other than a modest workers’ compensation check, Herrera says his money is running out. He can only fantasize about holding a job and resuming the activities he used to relish — martial arts, dancing, fishing with his son, now 13.

…

Under Texas law, Herrera can’t sue Repcon, his employer at the time of the accident, because the company provided workers’ compensation coverage. Such is the case in most states. Because of a court decision, however, a property owner in Texas is considered its own “general contractor,” and also is shielded from lawsuits if it provides workers’ comp to its “subcontractors.” Citgo did.

The 2007 Texas Supreme Court decision shielding “premises owners” from liability was unanimous. During their careers on the court, the nine justices involved in the ruling collectively have received nearly $1.2 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. The industry is a major economic engine in Texas; nearly one-fifth of all U.S. refineries are located there.

Unless the Texas Legislature changes the law, Herrera’s prospects for a sizable financial recovery are limited. At the moment, he is suing the only entity he can, Refined Technologies Inc., a Citgo contractor that planned and directed the work on the heat exchanger.

Read More: The Center for Public Integrity

Some former insiders of an obscure state agency are now charging that bad doctors are getting away with fraud in the millions of dollars.

The Texas Division of Workers’ Compensation, by law, is supposed to make sure doctors provide good care at a fair cost to injured workers –  care that employers pay for through workers’ comp insurance.

But if those doctors chose to try to bilk the system, the agency has investigators who are supposed to catch it.

Now, those former insiders are telling the 11 News I-Team that was not happening.

“If you’re a dishonest doctor, workers’ comp is a gold mine for you. It’s a gold mine because there is very little oversight and all’s you got to do is, you can over-treat people,” said Dr. Ken Ford, a retired orthopedic surgeon who practiced for over two decades in Houston.

Read More: KHOU-TV