Judge strikes down a Texas law requiring age verification to view adult websites
U.S. Court News
A federal judge has struck down a Texas law requiring age verification and health warnings to view pornographic websites and blocked the state attorney general’s office from enforcing it.
In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Ezra agreed with claims that House Bill 1181, which was signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in June, violates free speech rights and is overbroad and vague.
The state attorney general’s office, which is defending the law, immediately filed notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 4 by the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association for the adult entertainment industry and a person identified as Jane Doe and described as an adult entertainer on various adult sites, including Pornhub.
Judge Ezra also said the law, which was to take effect Friday, raises privacy concerns because a permissible age verification is using a traceable government-issued identification and the government has access to and is not required to delete the data.
“People will be particularly concerned about accessing controversial speech when the state government can log and track that access,” Ezra wrote. “By verifying information through government identification, the law will allow the government to peer into the most intimate and personal aspects of people’s lives.”
Ezra said Texas has a legitimate goal of protecting children from online sexual material, but noted other measures, including blocking and filtering software, exist.
“These methods are more effective and less restrictive in terms of protecting minors from adult content,” Ezra wrote. The judge also found the law unconstitutionally compels speech by requiring adult sites to post health warnings they dispute — that pornography is addictive, impairs mental development and increases the demand for prostitution, child exploitation and child sexual abuse images.
“The disclosures state scientific findings as a matter of fact, when in reality, they range from heavily contested to unsupported by the evidence,” Ezra wrote.
The Texas law is one of several similar age verification laws passed in other states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Utah and Louisiana.
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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs
When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.
In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.
In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.