Chiropractors Soliciting Car Wreck Victims For Attorneys

Brooks Schuelke

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This week, Allstate Insurance Company filed a suit in a Texas US District Court against 67 defendants, including chiropractors and law firms, alleging that they were improperly soliciting car wreck victims as clients. Under Texas law, personal injury lawyers are limited in their abilities to contact victims of car wrecks. To get around this limitation, some unscrupulous attorneys have developed relationships with chiropractors, who are not forbidden from contacting those injured in wrecks. The chiropractors buy police reports of accidents, contact the victims of the car wrecks, and offer them chiropractic services and also refer the victims to attorneys. Allstate is now suing to limit this conduct.

The irony is that the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, the state's largest association of personal injury attorneys (of which we are active members), worked very had last legislative session to get the Texas legislature to pass a bill that would limit this solicitation by chiropractors. Unfortunately, Governor Perry inexplicably vetoed the legislation. We are hopeful that we can correct his error during the next legislative session to protect the public and those trial lawyers that seek to follow the rules.