Legal Reform
Republicans, Democrats, and Independents from all across the country understand that our society has become litigious to an extreme degree. Texas has been active for years at improving this problem behind Texans for Lawuit Reform. Since 1994, TLR has worked to pass lawsuit reforms that have made the Lone Star State a model for the nation. TLR describes the problem best on their website www.tortreform.com. "We are small business owners, homemakers, and community volunteers. We are lawyers who want our profession back, and plant managers who want our companies to expand facilities to create jobs for Texans. We are consumers who want to eliminate the wasteful "tort tax" from the products and services produced in Texas. We are ranchers and teachers who have anguished over needless lawsuits. We are doctors and nurses who have seen our colleagues abandon their chosen professions because of the emotional and financial toll imposed by legal assaults. We are the citizens of Texas who want a better future for ourselves and our children." The ability to bring suit for a grievance is an important right in America that must not be abused either from limitation to use or excessive use. Today it is excessive use. The Overcriminalization guide prepared by The Heritage Foundation is an eye opener.
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In Harvey’s Wake, a Rush to the Courthouse

10/23/17
from The Wall Street Journal,
10/23/17:

Lawyers jockey for position in litigation against federal government over decision to release water from dams

The plaintiffs’ lawyers lined up shoulder to shoulder on a recent Friday in a Houston courtroom, filling every available bench, jury box and table. All had come to hear how they could get a piece of sprawling litigation emerging from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey. “I’ve never seen so many suits in the same room, unless it was in church,” said Chris Johns, a Texas lawyer in attendance at the Oct. 6 hearing. The lawyers have coalesced around a corner of eminent domain law they hope will lead to big payouts from the federal government. Dozens of lawsuits filed so far seek compensation for the damage homeowners say was caused when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released water from two area reservoirs in the days after a Category 4 hurricane and historic rainfall flooded Houston in late August.

The Addicks and Barker dams were built in the 1940s to reduce the risk of flooding in Houston. By ordering the controlled release, the Army Corps alleviated water levels that could have poured over or around the two earthen dams, potentially rupturing them and causing significant damage. The government said in a court filing the flooding was a 1,000-year event and that the release of water to relieve the Addicks and Barker dams doesn’t qualify as a taking under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. A “single flood—as opposed to an inevitably recurring flooding caused by the Government—is not a taking as a matter of law,” the filing says.

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