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Changes To Trucking Lawsuits Heads To Abbott’s Desk

Texas State Capitol in Austin.
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Texas State Capitol in Austin.

The bill was a priority for business groups in this legislative session.

A bill that makes it harder to get damages from trucking companies after crashes is headed to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk. On Friday, the Texas House confirmed changes to the bill made in the state Senate.

HB 19 splits a liability trial for trucking companies into two phases, with the first phase focused on the fault of the driver and the second phase focused on the fault of the company. Trial lawyers and safety advocates had complained this would make it harder to extract financial damages from companies, something they say keeps firms compliant with safety rules and best practices.

Amendments to the bill, however, may soften the impact of the two-part trial. They would allow some specific evidence against companies to be introduced during the first phase.

The amendments expanded the political support for the measure as it moved through the legislative process. HB 19 passed with votes from both parties, although not unanimously.

The trade group for the trucking industry in Texas applauded the bill’s passage in a statement on Friday, saying this will reduce unfair lawsuits.

“Today is a monumental day for the Texas trucking industry,” said John D. Esparza, Texas Trucking Association President and CEO. “For too many years, the trucking industry has been a lucrative profit center for some trial attorneys.”

Yet Adrian Shelley, Texas office director at the consumer rights group Public Citizen, said the underlying problem is Texas’ unsafe roads.

“All this is doing is addressing exposure from companies for the accidents that they cause. It’s just a bad approach to the problem,” Shelley said.

Texas had more fatal crashes involving large trucks than any other state in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.

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Bret Jaspers is a reporter for KERA. His stories have aired nationally on the BBC, NPR’s newsmagazines, and APM’s Marketplace. He collaborated on the series Cash Flows, which won a 2020 Sigma Delta Chi award for Radio Investigative Reporting. He's a member of Actors' Equity, the professional stage actors union.