The 78th Legislature passed House Bill 4 in 2003. The final product represents a decades long wish list of interest groups determined to institutionalize the same advantages they enjoy in the legislature into the civil justice system. In the end, products liability and medical malpractice law were rewritten, class-action and comparative fault were amended almost beyond recognition, and a hodge podge of corporate and insurance policy initiatives were codified in the Civil Practice & Remedies Code and throughout other sections of Texas law.
Six years later, the meaning of amendments or new provisions within the bill remain the subject of substantial debate. Few have caused as much dispute as Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 41.0105. The obtuse language and convoluted legislative history left wide variations of interpretation from the beginning. See Jim M. Perdue, Jr., Maybe It Depends on What Your Definition of ‘Or’ Is? – A Holistic Approach to Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 41.0105, the Collateral Source Rule, and Legislative History, 38 TEX. TECH L. REV. 241 (2006).