Research
Lawsuit abuse makes Texas more expensive. Those costs reach families through higher insurance premiums, consumer prices and the cost of doing business. These are the figures TLR uses to describe that cost, each with its source and year of publication.
How to read this page
Every figure below is drawn from a named, published source. TLR reports these numbers; we do not estimate or model them on our own.
Texans pay an estimated $1,725 more each year for goods and services because excessive litigation costs are passed to consumers — higher than the $1,666 national average.
What gets more expensive when litigation costs rise:
Measured a different way —
The 2026 Perryman analysis estimates $2,951 in lost earnings plus $2,597 in higher consumer costs for the average Texas household.
The per-person and per-household figures come from different methodologies and units. Don't stack them without saying so — that's how good research gets turned into bad talking points.
Consumer-price effects —
More than any other state over the study period covered by ILR's May 2024 report.
The report separately discusses preliminary 2023 data, which is not included in this total.
A separate 2024 update —
Again more than any other state. Auto-accident cases drive roughly 23% of nuclear verdicts nationally.
A jury award of $10 million or more is generally considered a nuclear verdict.
Massive awards don't disappear when a courtroom empties. Those costs reach families through higher insurance premiums, consumer prices and the cost of doing business.
Placing personal-injury marketing in the same range as major national consumer brands.
Today's personal-injury industry runs a sophisticated system for generating claims. Billboards, television spots, paid search, and precision digital ads identify potential clients, generate claims, and feed a network of attorneys, medical providers, and outside financiers.
Outside investors finance lawsuits in exchange for a share of the recovery.
Texas transparency gap —
Texas currently has no general statewide requirement forcing litigation funders to disclose their involvement in a lawsuit.
Follow the funding —
The U.S. accounts for roughly $15B of an approximately $20B global litigation-finance market. National reporting has cited Russian oligarchs and foreign sovereign interests among the funders.
Courts and parties should know who is financing a lawsuit, who stands to profit from it, and whether foreign interests are involved.
Working with plaintiff lawyers, some medical providers treat small discomforts like major injuries and bill excessive amounts for their services. Then they testify at trial that the services were necessary and the bills are reasonable. That is fraud. Jurors should know the true value of the medical care provided to the plaintiff and about the financial relationship between the lawyer and the provider.
Current Texas practice does not require a plaintiff to show jurors what legitimate providers charge and accept for the same services, or what the lawyer and the provider stand to gain from one another. Jurors may see a single, larger number and nothing that puts it in context.
When a jury treats an inflated billed charge as the measure of damages, the award can far exceed the real value of the care. That difference flows into settlement demands, insurance premiums and the price of services.
Let’s trust our jurors to make good decisions. Let’s give them the information they need. A medical bill should reflect the true value of care, not serve as a multiplier used to increase the value of a lawsuit.
Market value of medical care
Knowing the amounts legitimate healthcare providers regularly charge and accept for the same services helps jurors understand the true value of the care provided in the lawsuit.
Lawyer-doctor financial relationship
Jurors should know how often the lawyer refers clients to the provider, and how much money the lawyer has paid that provider in those cases, so they can judge whether the provider has a financial interest in the outcome.
What Texas should do —
Jurors should know the true value of the medical care provided to the plaintiff and about the financial relationship between the lawyer and the provider. Texas should give jurors a complete and accurate picture of medical expenses. Legitimately injured Texans should recover their real medical losses. Awards should not be based on charges that are made up to enhance the value of a lawsuit.
What Senate Bill 30 attempted in 2025 —
SB 30 would have required plaintiffs to give defendants a clearer picture of the medical expenses at issue and would have limited recovery to amounts actually paid or incurred, with certain exceptions. The goal was to stop inflated billed charges from driving larger awards.
Senate Bill 30 advanced through both chambers in 2025, but the House and Senate did not reach final agreement before the session ended. Texas still has not resolved what medical-cost evidence jurors should see. That issue returns in 2027.
Read the brief —
See how medical billing fraud fits into TLR’s 2027 agenda.
Medical billing fraud briefA record of medical-liability reform —
The Texas Medical Board licensed roughly 2,000 new physicians a year before the 2003 reforms and about 7,000 a year in the years that followed. Over the same two decades the state's population grew from about 22 million to about 30 million, so the licensed physician workforce grew faster than the population it serves.
Measured against pre-reform 2003 rates. The steepest reductions came in the first decade after Proposition 12 took effect and have largely held since.
From a 2013 survey of Texas hospitals conducted a decade after the reforms took effect. The figure documents the post-reform recruitment period, not present-day conditions.
The 2003 damage limits —
The 2003 limits apply to non-economic damages only — not to medical expenses, lost wages, or other economic losses.
Texas-based Fortune 500 companies produced ~$2.8T in annual revenue vs. ~$2.7T for California-based companies.
Includes Tesla, Oracle, Chevron, and Axiom Space.
TLR at a glance —
A statewide coalition of businesses, professions, and communities. Leading the fight against lawsuit abuse since 1994.
