Farmers Insurance Group has agreed to pay $84,000,000 in damages to settle a 2002 lawsuit which alleged that Farmers violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act as well as the Texas Insurance Code by charging unaware policy holders higher premiums for less coverage. The Texas Department of…
Texas’ brutal medical tort reform may have saved the Texas medical industry millions in malpractice insurance premiums and given Texas hospitals near immunity for medical incompetence but it hasn’t done anything to curb the stunning bills that Texas hospitals regular charge patients. The Government Accounting Office reports that Dallas hospital…
The dangers of tobacco smoke have been common knowledge since the Surgeon General first warned the American public more than 50 years ago. However, the dangers were generally thought to be to be limited to lung cancer, emphysema, and other respiratory related disorders. Individuals with lung cancer filed products liability…
Hyperinflated hospital charges constitute about one third of the $2.7 trillion spent annually on health care in the United States. According to a study published in the The Journal of the American Medical Association hospital charges are the single largest cause of medical inflation. According to the International Federation of…
Austin Federal District Judge Lee Yeakel recently issued an opinion that the provision in Texas’ recent anti-abortion statute requiring that doctors performing abortions must have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals violates the Constitution. Judge Yeakel wrote that the requirement unreasonably restricts a wonan’s access to abortion clinic and the rights…
Google’s recent admission that no one sending communications to a Gmail account has any reasonable expectation of privacy raises the question whether a doctor, lawyer, accountant or any other professional charged with the duty of maintaining client confidentiality can ethically send confidential information through a Gmail account. The Texas rules…
Plagued by recalls Toyota has agreed to pay more than one billion dollars to settle claims related to sudden-acceleration recalls. But Toyota’s problems over the last several years aren’t limited to acceleration issues. On October 29, 2009, Toyota recalled 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles because of sudden acceleration occurring…
The U.S. Supreme Court has granted cert in E.M.A. ex rel Plyler v. Cansler in which the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the pro rata formula in Ahlborn. Under Ahlborn when Medicaid pays accident related medical expenses and the Plaintiff subsequently obtains a recovery Medicaid may recover a proportionate…
The Texas Supreme Court recently narrowed mental anguish coverage under insurance policies in Evanston Ins. Co. v. Legacy of Life, Inc. In Evanston, a family member of an organ donor learned that the organ donor charity was actually making money off of the donated organs and sued the charity for…
The Forth Worth Court of Appeals recently released the opinion in Medlen v.Strickland holding that a pet owner could recover sentimental or intrinsic value damages for the loss of a pet. The Medlen opinion flies in the face of the 120 year old Texas Supreme Court case of Heiligmann v.…