Texas Civil Justice League summarizes 84th Legislature

Originally published by David Yates.

With so many new faces arriving at the Austin Capitol in January, the shape the 84^th Legislature would take seemed unclear at the time, but with the session officially in the books, one tort reform group is giving A’s across the board.

On June 22 the Texas Civil Justice League released its summary of the 84^th Legislature, stating that the group’s primary legislative program consisted of five major pieces of legislation, four of which passed and were signed, with the fifth set to be addressed in a case pending before the Texas Supreme Court.

TCJL also listed several other bills signed into law that were supported by the group, including Senate Bill 1457, relating to bad faith claims of patent infringement; providing a civil penalty.

“SB 1457 … deals with the high volume of patent litigation in federal district court in Marshall, Texas, and the need to protect consumers from aggressive ‘patent trolling’ by law firms.

“Typically, the firms send mass demand letters threatening businesses with patent infringement lawsuits if they don’t pay a specified ‘settlement’ amount. While everyone agrees that federal law virtually pre-empts most patent law issues, several states have enacted statutes imposing liability on a patent troll for ‘bad faith’ patent infringement claims.

“We can add Texas to the list of these states taking action to shut down these operations. SB 1457 gives the attorney general the authority to sue a bad faith patent troll for up to $50,000 in civil penalties per violation.”

Gov. Greg Abbott signed off on the measure June 17.

The four primary measures supported by TCJL that were passed and signed include:

– HB 1794/SB 1509 (good faith remediation) The new law will limit the civil penalty for polluters to $4.3 million;

– HB 1692/SB 1942 (forum non conveniens) A measure to stop out-of-state plaintiffs from filing in Texas;

– HB 1113/SB 941 (standing in contested cases) A new law enforcing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s right to grant or deny requests for contested case hearings in licensing and permitting matters; and

– HB 1247 (contested case procedures) A signed bill to streamlining contested case hearings on environmental permits.

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