Dallas Fort Worth Insurance Lawyer Blog

Palo Pinto attorneys need to know how to use the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) to help them with their claims for Texas Insurance Code violations.

The Texas Business & Commerce Code, Section 17.50(b)(1), allows the jury in this type of case to award up to three times the amount of mental anguish damages and economic damages when they find the defendant acted “intentionally.”

Proving intentional conduct imposes a slightly higher burden than does proving knowing misconduct. The key difference is that “intentionally” requires proof that the defendant intended that the consumer act in detrimental reliance.

Texas insurance lawyers need to be know how to use the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) to help their clients.

Part of using the DTPA properly is to know when conduct by a company arises to the DTPA legal definition of “knowing.” Here is why. The Texas Business & Commerce Code, Section 17.50(b), tells us that mental anguish damages can be recovered under the DTPA when a “knowing” violation is shown. This is affirmed in Texas case law by the Texas Supreme Court in a 1993 case, and again in a 1995 case.

Section 17.45(9) tells us that “knowingly” means actual awareness, at the time of the act or practice complained of, of the falsity, deception, or unfairness of the act or practice giving rise to the consumer’s claim or, in an action brought under subdivision (2) of subsection (a) of Section 17.50, actual awareness of the act, practice, condition, defect, or failure constituting the breach of warranty, but actual awareness may be inferred where objective manifestations indicate that a person acted with actual awareness.

Fort Worth insurance lawyers will have potential clients come in their doors complaining of being done wrong by an insurance company. One of the ways to help a client make a recovery in their case, besides the Texas Insurance Code, is the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).

The DTPA does not limit who may be sued except for one seldom used media exception found in Section 17.49. Instead, the right to sue depends on whether the plaintiff qualifies as a “consumer” under the DTPA. This is established with respect to the underlying transaction. Once it is shown that the plaintiff sought or acquired goods or services by purchase or lease, the plaintiff is a “consumer” as to all persons involved in the transaction. This is told to us by the DTPA and in case law. The case law is from the Texas Supreme Court case, Cameron v. Terrell & Garrett, Inc., a 1981 case.

There is a long line a Texas appeals court cases that say privity of contract is not required to be classified as a consumer.

Dallas insurance lawyers know the ways the Texas Insurance Code and the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) interact with each other and how to use both to help clients who are being jerked around by an insurance company.

Texas Insurance Code, Section 541.151, says that a person who sustains damages by someone engaging in the business of insurance can bring an action against that other person for any act specifically enumerated in Section 17.46(b) of the Texas DTPA.

The DTPA provides a cause of action for conduct defined in the “laundry list” of Section 17.46(b). The most useful prohibitions for insurance cases found in the subparagraphs to this provision are: