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Texas Tribune Daily Brief
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| Strict Texas Law Makes Ebola Lawsuits Unlikely |  | Thanks to a number of Texas court decisions and laws'including a sweeping 2003 Republican-led tort reform effort'lawyers say it's unlikely that Presbyterian faces serious legal risk from the Ebola cases or others like them. Even if the hospital were found liable in court, the damages would be limited. Without the threat of expensive litigation, critics of tort reform argue, hospitals face little consequence for turning away sick, uninsured patients, even ones with Ebola.
Patrick Michels, Texas Observer/The Guardian, Texas Observer 10/23/2014    | | Read Article: Texas Observer The Guardian (UK) |
| State Fights Release of Race Records | | | The TDI is fighting the Texas Tribune's request for records that could shed light on why it has failed to collect racial data on injured workers, despite a 1993 law that requires it. On behalf of its Division of Workers' Compensation, the department is citing numerous exemptions to state transparency laws and has asked Attorney General Greg Abbott to keep the documents secret. The Tribune revealed that the state has not compiled useful racial statistics on injured workers for several years, despite a 1993 Labor Code provision. The division acknowledged that the agency does not maintain the data, saying that it's up to employees to voluntarily disclose the information.
Jay Root, Texas Tribune 10/23/2014
| | Read Article: Texas Tribune |
| One-Third of Top Websites Restrict Customers' Right to Sue | | Tucked into the dense legalese of their terms-of-service rules, many of the Internet's most popular sites have inserted language that forbids users from suing if something goes wrong. Forced arbitration clauses and class-action ban clauses, have long been included in complex offline contracts. But their presence online ' in documents people rarely see, let alone read ' offers a new twist, with consequences for consumers that are still being sorted out by the courts.
Jeremy B. Merrill (Blog), The New York Times 10/23/2014 | | Read Article: The New York Times |
| Group: Fracking Companies Using Toxic Benzene in Drilling | | Some oil and gas drillers are using benzene, which can cause cancer, in the mix of water and chemicals they shoot underground to free trapped hydrocarbons from shale rock, the The Environmental Integrity Project said today. Benzene isn't banned in hydraulic fracturing, although diesel is restricted because regulators determined it may have carcinogens, including benzene. Drillers need a permit before using diesel in the fracking mixture that's blasted into shale with oil and gas deposits; they don't need one for benzene.
Mark Drajem , Bloomberg 10/23/2014 | | Read Article: Bloomberg |
| Stats Shed Light on Lawyer's Top E-Filing Complaints | | Lawyers say they've noticed improvements in the state's new e-filing system, and court administrators have the statistics to prove it. But the stats also show areas for improvement. The information shows that a lawyer's individual experience really depends upon where he works. Some clerks are better than others at quickly processing documents and maintaining low return-for-correction rates. The e-filing statistics show that the return rate is inconsistent across Texas. The OCA provided Texas Lawyer with a report that covers filings for the whole month of September. Among the 10 counties that saw the largest numbers of e-filings during that time, the rate of return varied greatly.
Angela Morris, Texas Lawyer 10/23/2014 | | Read Article: Texas Lawyer |
| As Safety Concerns Grow, More States Ban Use of a Guardrail Unit | | A day after the Federal Highway Administration demanded that the ET-Plus be retested for safety, Oregon and Mississippi became the sixth and seventh states to prohibit further installation of the system. The federal agency had defended the product for more than two years, even after it learned that Trinity had changed the design in 2005 without notifying the government, as required.
AARON M. KESSLER and DANIELLE IVORY, The New York Times 10/23/2014 | | Read Article: The New York Times |
| Some U.S. Hospitals Weigh Withholding Care to Ebola Patients | | The Ebola crisis is forcing the American healthcare system to consider withholding some medical interventions because they are too dangerous to doctors and nurses and unlikely to help a patient. Officials from at least three hospital systems interviewed by Reuters said they were considering whether to withhold individual procedures or leave it up to individual doctors to determine whether an intervention would be performed. Ethics experts say they are also fielding more calls from doctors asking what their professional obligations are to patients if healthcare workers could be at risk.
Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley, Reuters 10/23/2014 | | Read Article: Reuters |
| Presbyterian Hospital Posts Poor ER Benchmarks | | Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, the first U.S.-diagnosed Ebola patient walked through its seemingly weakest link: the emergency room. Presbyterian met or exceeded 75 percent of 138 specific measures of care, according to its most recent data. But its emergency department failed to meet all five national patient safety and quality benchmarks the hospital reported. Those measure how long it takes for patients to be seen, admitted, or otherwise cared for in the ER.
MARTHA MENDOZA and MATT SEDENSKY, AP, Houston Chronicle 10/23/2014 | | Read Article: Houston Chronicle |
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