Lawyers using "runners"

Ezine Articles
November 13, 2009
Comment: Subject: Barratry

Stephanie Gibson writes:

House Bill 148 would have allowed Texas to recover significant civil damages for such harassment and illegal, unwanted solicitations by unscrupulous lawyers or their representatives. While the bill did pass, it was quietly gutted.Initially, HB 148 would have empowered clients to collect triple damages from lawyers who engage in illegal case solicitation. This civil remedy would have penalized such practices as lawyers using “runners” to covertly solicit cases or to otherwise exploit the vulnerability of hospitalized accident victims and their families. The new civil treble damage claim would also have applied to private investigators, chiropractors, doctors, and other health care workers who participated in the illegal solicitation of cases. This provision was stripped from the bill, despite all sides claiming to support the change. Also removed were civil triple damage claims penalizing solicitations involving false, fraudulent, misleading, deceptive, or unfair statements or claims, or that included coercion, duress, overreaching, harassment, intimidation, or undue influence. Brazen case solicitation has been practiced with impunity in some parts of Texas for years, particularly in South Texas. The San Antonio Express-News reported in May that the situation there has grown so severe that “warfare has broken out over barratry” in Corpus Christi. The paper reported that “lawyers are suing lawyers, seeking to overturn multimillion-dollar settlements of cases they claim were acquired improperly.”

Comment provided November 13, 2009 at 10:59 am