Reining in nuclear verdicts® will help keep Texas affordable, small businesses thriving
By Roger Borgelt
For decades, Texas has led the nation as a beacon for business investment and growth opportunities, attracting job creators, large and small. But a surge of abusive lawsuits and runaway court verdicts is draining Texans’ pocketbooks — and threatening to wreck Texas’ reputation as a job-friendly state.
Texas is the unwelcome home to some of the nation’s largest “nuclear verdicts®,” or court awards exceeding $10 million. Between 2009 and 2023, Texas saw 207 nuclear verdicts® totaling more than $45 billion. In 2023, six of the top 10 verdicts in the country were handed down in Texas, totaling over $200 million. This year, Texas courts delivered some of the largest verdicts in state history, including $831 million in San Antonio and $640 million in Harris County.
Driven by questionable legal practices, nuclear verdicts® are a significant cause for concern. And they have landed Texas a spot on the 2025-2026 Judicial Hellholes® Watch List – a dire warning that Texas’ record of business excellence is under attack.
The Watch List, part of the American Tort Reform Foundation’s annual Judicial Hellholes® report, highlights courts and jurisdictions in which civil justice system is not applied in a fair and equitable manner. An unbalanced civil justice system that perpetuates abusive, excessive lawsuits not only costs jobs and economic growth, but it also burdens consumers and taxpayers.
Everyone one of us pays for the cost of lawsuits, whether you are a party to a lawsuit or not. The toll on Texans is especially great. On average, Texans pay an extra $1,725 annually in the form of a “lawsuit tax” that is baked into everything from groceries to housing and insurance. Texas’ annual average lawsuit tax is well above the national average or $1,666 per person. What’s more: excessive lawsuits in Texas also drive the loss of nearly half a million jobs each year.
Texas has long been a lawsuit reform trailblazer and the gold standard for courtroom fairness. But clearly that record is under attack. The state’s inclusion on the 2025-2026 Watch List – largely precipitated by the proliferation of nuclear verdicts® – signals that Texas lawmakers must clamp down on the abusive legal practices driving these court awards. In the 1970s and 1980s, the volatility and unpredictability of Texas’ civil justice system led some to dub our state the lawsuit capital of the world. Since then, Texas has enacted some of the most comprehensive lawsuit reforms in the nation. But clearly, more work is needed.
In my work, I have seen firsthand the importance of a fair and just legal system and what lawsuit abuse can do to cause a business to shelve expansion or hiring. Lawsuit abuse is a jobs killer, pure and simple; for a small business, you’re just one lawsuit away from being driven out of business.
Without a doubt, Texas’ economic strength and future prosperity hinge on ensuring its courts are focused on justice, not greed. Lawmakers must move swiftly to address the root causes of the runaway verdicts that are making consumer goods and services less affordable for hardworking Texans and small businesses alike. Unchecked, an out-of-control legal system could turn Texas into a full-blown Judicial Hellhole®.
Roger Borgelt is an attorney and member of the board of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse of Central Texas.
