Issue Number 3, 2003

By Jennifer Knauth, Scott, Douglass & McConnico, LLP, Austin, Texas*

Article 2 of House Bill 4, the 2003 Texas "tort reform" bill, creates a new settlement offer framework in most types of civil cases involving claims by either party for monetary relief. This new settlement offer scheme will be codified as new Chapter 42 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code. Under the new law, if either party rejects a Chapter 42 settlement offer, the rejecting party may have to pay a defined portion of the offering party’s litigation fees and costs. This article outlines the new scheme and attempts to illustrate how it may apply in practice.

Although it seems like only yesterday that I wrote the first of these Annual Messages we are now within a few months of celebrating the 25^th Anniversary of the issuance of our first policy on May 1, 1979. Interestingly, we find ourselves in the midst of an insurance market that in some ways resembles the one which led to the creation of TLIE in the late 1970’s.