AUSTIN, Texas, April 3, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Texans for Lawsuit Reform applauded the Texas Supreme Court today for reaffirming its prior decision in Entergy Gulf States v. Summers.
"The Entergy decision is well-reasoned and correctly decided," said TLR President Richard J. Trabulsi. "The Texas Supreme Court has done exactly what a court is supposed to do. They have ignored a firestorm of criticism from personal injury trial lawyers and followed the law as written. Courts should always interpret statutes to mean what the words of the statute plainly say, just as the Court did today."
In 1983, the Texas Legislature incorporated language in the Texas Workers' Compensation Act to allow a general contractor to agree with its subcontractors to provide workers' compensation coverage for the subcontractors' employees.
In 1989, when overhauling the Workers' Compensation Act, the Legislature amended a definition in the Act in a way that eliminated any concern that a premises owner is precluded from being its own general contractor. When acting as its own general contractor, the premises owner can provide a comprehensive workers' compensation policy to cover all workers on the jobsite.
Texas court cases show that premises owners have believed since the early 1990s, if not before, that they were entitled to act as their own general contractor. Over the past two decades, dozens of large-scale projects in Texas have been constructed in Texas by property owners who were serving as their own general contractors and who were providing workers' compensation coverage for everyone working at the jobsite.
"This opinion demonstrates that the Texas Supreme Court is committed to following the law as written, which is the hallmark of a conservative court," Trabulsi said. "The Court also should be commended for the extraordinary efforts it made to reach a correct result in this case. In the face of criticism, it did exactly what any reasonable person would have wanted it to do-it granted rehearing, carefully considered all the legal arguments, and wrote a thoroughly researched opinion."
Texans for Lawsuit Reform is the state's largest civil justice reform organization. TLR is a bipartisan, volunteer-led coalition with nearly 17,000 supporters residing in 818 Texas communities and representing 1,266 different businesses, professions and trades. For more information about TLR visit www.tortreform.com.
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