The controversial new bill is Tex. H.B. 4, 78th Leg., R.S. (2003). HB 4 has extensive provisions affecting both procedural and substantive rights under Texas tort law. The amendments in the bill affect principally the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann.) and the Medical Liability and Insurance Improvement Act, Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 4590i (Vernon 2003).

Plaintiffs’ attorneys are reeling in the wake of limits on awards in medical malpractice actions, and changes in comparative negligence, class action, and statute of limitations provisions. Some of the provisions will likely become the subject of court challenges. For example, questions abound about how those provisions may conflict with existing laws on tolling of the limitations periods for minors and those suffering a legal disability.

Texas Legislature Online, (TLO). at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/ is the starting place for legislative intent research. (You can also reach this site by clicking on Legal Research Links, Texas at the library’s website http://www.stcl.edu/library/libhome.html and scrolling to the "Legislative History" link.)

• When using the TLO site, pay attention to the drop down boxes and specify the 78th Regular Session since Governor Rick Perry called three special sessions.
• Enter HB4 in the "bill status" search box. You will see a useful list of the dates of actions on the bill. Click on text. There is an option of looking at the text of the enrolled bill or earlier versions, bill analysis, authors, co-authors, witness lists, and committee action.
• Select analysis to get the House and Senate Reports.
• There are additional legislative intent resources provided by the House Research Organization (HRO). http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/hrofr/hrofr.htm. (Since the TLO website is not particularly user friendly some of the most important resource links are hard to find or nonexistent. For example you must click on House and then scroll to the bottom of that page to reach the HRO site.)
• From the HRO click on the “All Publications” link, http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/hrofr/frame4.htm , Go to "Focus Reports" http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/hrofr/frame4.htm. These publications are valuable for their in-depth information on the 78th Legislative Session.
• The Conference Committee Reports are huge and can be accessed at http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legis/78rsccrs.html (TLRL).
• Important note: Vernon's paper publication or online publication does not provide the bill number in the history section after the text of the statute. The Texas Legislative Reference Library (TLRL), http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/ has an online tool that can help. The Bill-chapter/chapter-bill cross reference tables http://www.lrl.state.tx.us/legis/billChapter/lrlhome.cfm, will provide you with bill numbers for use in quickly locating the relevant bills at the TLO website. Being a library site, the TLRL site is exceptional and contains extensive instruction on locating legislative intent and navigating relevant websites. Hint: Keep two browsers up so you can go back and forth between TLRL and TLO.
• Click and discover! There is a link on TLRL to Conference Committee Reports for the 78th Legislative. The report on HB 4 is huge, 283 pages in PDF format and contains a section by section analysis of the differences between the House and the original Senate bill before conference agreement.
• If you are so inclined you may also listen to committee proceedings by audio stream at http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/house/broadcast.htm. Go back to the bill history to find the date of committee hearings and listen to the archived broadcasts.
• A word about the Texas statutes online http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/statutes/statutes.html. Caution: you must use the “Index to Sections Affected” in order to update the statutes.