Texas has recorded 207 "nuclear verdicts"—damage awards of $10 million or more—between 2009 and 2023, totaling more than $45 billion and leading the nation in outsized jury awards, according to a new report published June 24, 2026 by the James Madison Institute. The report examines how decades of civil justice reform in Texas and Florida—credited with fueling their economic dominance in the "Boom Belt"—now face mounting threats from organized trial lawyer political spending, expanded causes of action, and the largely unregulated growth of third-party litigation financing. While both states built competitive advantages through predictable legal environments, the report warns that statehouse politics now pose as much risk to those gains as the courts.
The report details Texas' journey from its 1969 Tort Claims Act through comprehensive 2003 medical malpractice reforms that capped noneconomic damages and overhauled tort doctrines. Following the 2003 reforms, the number of actively practicing Texas physicians increased by 15,611—a 44% jump—between 2002 and 2012, while the state population grew 21%. The rate of increase in physicians per 100,000 population rose significantly, with 20 of 22 trauma service areas seeing gains, five exceeding 50%. In surveys, 80% of hospitals reported that stabilizing liability costs had a "significant" or "somewhat significant" impact on emergency and specialized care availability, while 85% said physician recruitment became easier. Florida's reforms followed a similar arc: the state abolished joint and several liability in 2006, eliminated one-way attorney fees in property insurance cases in 2022, and in 2023 shifted from pure to modified comparative negligence, cut the statute of limitations for negligence claims from four to two years, and restricted attorney fee multipliers.
The report identifies trial lawyer political spending as a strategic threat to these achievements. In Texas, Democratic personal injury attorneys Kurt Arnold and Jason Itkin contributed $10 million in 2025 to launch the Texans for Truth and Liberty PAC, directing much of their spending toward influencing Republican primaries in hopes of weakening tort reform legislation. In Florida, the Florida Justice Association and its affiliated PACs donated $1 million to the Florida Democratic Party over five years while making targeted investments in Republican leaders, including more than $140,000 to a southwest Florida Republican senator—$10,000 of which arrived just three days after he filed two bills during the 2025 legislative session to reverse or weaken current reform measures. The report notes that House Bill 1551, which sought to redefine "prevailing party" and effectively revive the one-way attorney fee structure eliminated in 2022, died in committee in June 2025 after meeting opposition, but the effort illustrates the ongoing pressure.
The report argues that Texas and Florida's economic transformations—from resource- and tourism-dependent economies to diversified hubs for technology, finance, and manufacturing—were direct products of their legal reform agendas, not coincidental to them. Companies evaluating relocation or expansion decisions weigh legal environments alongside tax rates and labor costs, and a more prosperous economy simultaneously becomes a more attractive litigation venue with deeper-pocketed defendants and higher potential damages. The report warns that the combination of nuclear verdicts, third-party litigation financing that remains largely unregulated, and an increase in new civil causes of action during recent Texas legislative sessions threatens to stall, reverse, or circumvent decades of reform. During the 89th Texas Legislature, there was a surge in bills proposing new civil causes of action, though the percentage enacted was the lowest of analyzed sessions and the bills that passed largely focused on parental rights, privacy, and public safety. The report also highlights the Texas Attorney General's increased use of outside counsel on contingency, including a $93 million fee to Keller Postman from a Meta settlement and more than $190 million to Norton Rose Fulbright from a $1.38 billion Google settlement.
The report recommends that policymakers actively defend nuclear verdict reforms, enforce mandatory disclosure for third-party litigation financing, and block efforts to resurrect one-way attorney fees and other litigation-friendly mechanisms previously repealed due to economic damage. It emphasizes that "Boom Belt status is earned, not guaranteed" and that protecting the competitive edge requires vigilance and transparency around how money, policy, and institutional incentives intersect. The authors conclude that while political engagement by trial lawyers is lawful and constitutionally protected, the scale, coordination, and tactical targeting of these efforts raise serious public policy questions about whether civil justice systems are being shaped primarily by broad public interests or by narrow, litigation-driven priorities.