![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Texas-Capitol-back-side.jpg\")
article <\/p>\n article <\/p>\n
Texas has been added to a watch list on judicialhellholes.org, which documents nationwide “abuses in the civil justice system.”<\/p>\n
The American Tort Reform Foundation\u2019s list<\/a> says Texas is on thin ice for an apparent decline in recent years, including “nuclear verdicts” and various industry-targeted lawsuits from AG Ken Paxton.\u00a0<\/p>\n Texas on watch list <\/p>\n Texas is third on a list of six jurisdictions<\/a> that “bear watching due to expansive liability and concerning trends.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The site says while Texas has been the gold standard for balanced courts in the past, cracks are starting to show in the system.<\/p>\n They say trial courts are becoming known for pro-plaintiff leanings and “nuclear verdicts.” Additionally, they cite Paxton’s recent wave of industry-targeted lawsuits in line with “Make America Healthy Again,” which JHH says have been “awarding lucrative contracts worth millions of dollars to his political allies in the plaintiffs\u2019 bar.”<\/p>\n Texas \u2018nuclear verdicts\u2019 <\/p>\n According to JHH, Texas led the nation in lawsuit decisions worth $10 million or more between 2009 and 2023. These awards totaled more than $45 billion over 207 verdicts the site calls “excessive.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Several of these verdicts are from this year alone. The report outlines an $831 million award from May 2025 to an injured motorcyclist, to be paid by a bar who had overserved the 18-year-old whose drunk driving prompted the suit. Another example from this year is a $640 million wrongful death payout after the family of a construction worker sued an operating company.\u00a0<\/p>\n The driving forces behind these massive payouts are listed as non-economic damages, in which money is awarded for things like mental and emotional trauma; anchoring, in which a litigant constantly references “outrageously high” figures to the jury to manipulate large payments; and phantom damages, in which unpaid medical expenses are tacked onto awards.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ken Paxton lawsuits <\/p>\n JHH says Paxton’s activity as attorney general contributes to the state’s deteriorating civil justice system.\u00a0<\/p>\n They say the AG has hired outside counsel with whom he has personal connections to represent the state in lawsuits against industries, thereby lining his lawyer friends’ pockets rather than employing the use of the more than 750 attorneys staffed at the Texas AG’s office.\u00a0<\/p>\n In one of these lawsuits, JHH says an outside counselor was allowed to bill $24,570 worth of Texas tax dollars for a single day of work.\u00a0<\/p>\n JHH also notes Paxton’s numerous MAHA-branded suits, including against Tylenol, baby food, toothpaste, cereal and candy companies. They also reference a suit he launched against the video game Roblox, blaming them for child predators who allegedly use their platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this article came from Judicial Hellholes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Texas<\/a>Texas Politics<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Texas has been added to a watch list on judicialhellholes.org, which documents nationwide “abuses in the civil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[223,287,27,29,28,216,395,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-93653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-politics","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-headlines","12":"tag-texas-news","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-tx-politics","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}