Forty years ago this week, a 26-year-old law school graduate named Greg Abbott was out jogging on the streets of River Oaks when a tree snapped and fell, paralyzing him from the waist down. Abbott, in the midst of studying for the bar, sued the tree owner and later the tree-trimming company that had neglected the 75-year-old tree. He won a multimillion-dollar settlement, the details of which remained private for years. ($
Decades later, Abbott campaigned in support of tort reform curtailing "frivolous" lawsuits and won. Abbott's critics claimed that he helped usher in a Texas significantly less friendly to plaintiffs seeking damages like the ones Abbott won. Looking back on the case 40 years later, Don Riddle, Abbott's personal injury lawyer at the time, agrees that Texas has changed.
https://www.chron.com/politics/article/greg-abbott-tree-lawsuit-explained-19574621.php
You never know when a tree is going to fall on you…
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has received the full amount of the lawsuit settlement from the 1984 accident that put him in a wheelchair — $8.9 million.
Abbott, 65, was the state’s attorney general in 2013 and running for his first term as governor when he decided to voluntarily release copies of the September 1986 agreement to the media. He won a third term as governor in November.
He was 26 at the time of the incident when he went for an afternoon jog on a windy day through River Oaks in Houston. A limb snapped off a large oak tree as he was passing under it, crushing his spine and damaging his kidneys.
Abbott sued the homeowner and tree care company and won a settlement, which shows tax-free annuities in graduated payments. The payments began with a $300,000 check in 1986. They include both monthly payments that will continue for the rest of his life and lump sums that are deposited every three years until the final one last year.
https://isatexas.com/you-never-know-when-a-tree-is-going-to-fall-on-you/
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