Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers' Compensation v. Bonnie Jones and American Home Assurance Company

Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Green, Justice Johnson, Justice Guzman, Justice Lehrmann, Justice Devine, and Justice Brown joined.

The Texas workers’ compensation regime was overhauled just over a quarter-century ago amid complaints of high costs for employers and low benefit rates for workers—inefficiencies that had reached “crisis proportions.”1

The Legislature, concerned with attorney involvement in even the most routine, small-dollar claims, determined that one way to control costs was to constrain judicial review of agency determinations. Another cost-cutting reform: a formula that precisely…