Asbestos-Related Bill Not Passed Due To Time Crunch In Texas Legislature

June 1st marks the end of the 81st regular session of the Texas Legislature and a number of bills are scarmbling to be passed into law. A bill that that been widely debated this session is Senate Bill 1123 and its companion House Bill 1811 which would alter the standards in mesothelioma lawsuits by requiring plaintiffs to prove the amount of asbestos exposure they claim to have contributed to their disease.

Due to a change in the causation standard that was set out in the Borg-Warner Corp. v. Flores 2007 decision, defendants may be required to protect themselves from mesothelioma claims for which they were not responsible. The bill was authored by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock and was approved by the Senate in April. However, SB 1123 faced strong opposition from both the business and legal reform community and did not make it past the House. Its companion bill, HB 1811, authored by Sen. Craig Eiland, D-Texas City, did not make it past the House Committee on the Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence.

All bills had until midnight Tuesday May 26th to pass. Delay tactics such as stalling over minor bills left hundreds of bills, including SB1123 undecided and therefore dropped. Asbestos-related disease claims have been a controversial topic in courts. Due to a long latency period of the disease, symptoms typically take 20 to 50 years to appear. If a mesothelioma suffer were to sue he or she would have to prove where their disease originated, a difficult task half a century later.

Source: http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/219286-hundreds-of-bills-in-limbo-as-end-of-texas-legislative-session-looms