By Katie Buehler

Law360 (June 1, 2021, 7:31 PM EDT) -- Texas lawmakers closed the books Monday on a session in which they passed a bailout plan for electricity cooperatives and gas utilities after February's costly winter storm, limited the liability of commercial trucking companies for car crashes and created 10 new state district courts.

In a statement on Memorial Day, Gov. Greg Abbott touted this year's regular legislative session as "one of the most conservative legislative sessions our state has ever seen" and applauded lawmakers' efforts to push through legislation that expanded gun rights, banned abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat at about the six-week mark and ensured COVID-19 liability protections for first responders. But Abbott is planning to call a special legislative session for lawmakers to address redistricting as well as election and bail reform measures that died in the eleventh hour of the regular session.

"I expect legislators to have worked out their differences prior to arriving back at the Capitol so that they can hit the ground running to pass legislation related to these emergency items and other priority legislation," Abbott said in a statement he tweeted. "During the special session, we will continue to advance policies that put the people of Texas first."

Abbott has until June 20 to either sign or veto bills passed during the regular session. Here, Law360 looks at some of the biggest measures that made it to his desk.

ERCOT Overhaul
Lawmakers passed a group of bills filed in the wake of February's destructive winter storm that left millions of Texans without power for days during a record-breaking cold snap and resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people.

Abbott has already signed two measures into law: H.B. 16, prohibiting residential and small-business customers from signing up for wholesale electricity plans in which fluctuating market prices are passed on to consumers, and H.B. 2586, requiring the Public Utility Commission of Texas to conduct an independent audit of the financial condition of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc., or ERCOT, and its compliance with commission standards each year.

Over the weekend, lawmakers sent five more bills to the governor's desk.

S.B. 2 shrinks ERCOT's 16-person board of directors to 11 members, eight of whom will be selected by a committee of three people. Each member of ERCOT's board must be a resident of the state, according to the bill. And the selection committee will consist of one member appointed by the governor, one member appointed by the lieutenant governor and one member appointed by the speaker of the Texas House.

S.B. 3 establishes a power outage alert system akin to the state's Amber and Silver Alerts used by the Department of Public Safety and would give the PUC rulemaking power to establish criteria for "the content, activation, and termination of the alert" issued by the system. The bill also requires weatherization of all energy supply chain facilities and establishes fines for noncompliant facilities.

Two bills, H.B. 1520 and S.B. 1580, establish a bailout plan for gas utilities and electric cooperatives related to costs incurred during February's storm.

In addition, H.B. 4492 calls for the state to issue an $800 million loan to ERCOT to make up shortfalls ERCOT suffered from the February storm. The measure initially received pushback when the Texas Senate Business and Commerce Committee introduced it at a public hearing in late May.

Truck Crashes
H.B. 19 provides commercial motor vehicle companies operating in Texas with greater protection from accident lawsuits by establishing a two-phase trial for negligence suits brought against them.

In the first phase, plaintiffs would be required to prove that the company's employee — the driver of the commercial vehicle — was negligent in operating the vehicle and that they are entitled to compensatory damages. If the company driver is found negligent, the plaintiff would then be able to bring evidence against the company of a policy or environment that contributed to the negligence and seek exemplary damages in the trial's second phase.

The bill also loosens restrictions on admitting photo and video evidence of the accident at trial.

Personal injury attorney Alex Hilliard of Corpus Christi-based Hilliard Martinez Gonzales LLP told Law360 on Tuesday that H.B. 19 is one of the "worst pieces of legislation" that could ever be passed in Texas.

Hilliard, who represents families of drivers and passengers killed or injured in commercial trucking accidents, said the proposal is a step in the wrong direction in a state with the highest number of large truck crashes in the country. He said the legislation will lead to less accountability.

"If truck companies know that they can pay out less and that plaintiff lawyers will struggle more to get discovery from them, the result will be less safety measures will be taken by those companies," Hilliard said. "It's just a scary thing to think about."

COVID-19 Liability
S.B. 6 provides expanded liability protection to health care facilities and workers, first responders, businesses and educational institutions in coronavirus-related lawsuits, an initiative that has received support from both sides of the aisle since the beginning.

The bill would allow defendants to dismiss certain lawsuits after proving the pandemic was a producing cause of the alleged injury, while keeping alive lawsuits based on the defendants' actual malice or reckless and intentional conduct. The bill is retroactive and would apply to lawsuits filed since Abbott declared the pandemic a state disaster on March 13, 2020.

Health care workers and members of the business community sang the bill's praises at public hearings held before lawmakers at different stages of the legislative process, saying health care providers and businesses already have enough COVID-19-related headaches to deal with.

S.B. 22 ensures that any first responders who contracted COVID-19 while on duty would receive workers' compensation benefits.

Health Care Liability Expert Reports
Abbott signed a bill on Sunday that changes the timing of when expert reports must be filed in health care liability claim litigation so that trial judges can first make a preliminary determination as to whether a case requires the report.

The bill, S.B. 232, aims to offer litigants clarity about what constitutes health care liability claims, state Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, said at an April Texas Senate Jurisprudence Committee public hearing.

New Courts
H.B. 3774, referred to as the courts omnibus bill, adds 10 new state district courts. Bell, Harris, Tarrant, Williamson, Denton, Hays, Cameron, McLennan, Smith and Hidalgo counties will each receive one new district court under the bill.

--Editing by Jill Coffey.

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