By:  Hunter, Todd                                     H.B. No. 2423
       73R2315 DAK-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to the award of prejudgment interest in certain judgments.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Section 6(a), Article 1.05, Title 79, Revised
    1-5  Statutes (Article 5069-1.05, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is
    1-6  amended to read as follows:
    1-7        (a)  Judgments in wrongful death, personal injury, and
    1-8  property damage cases must include prejudgment interest only for
    1-9  that portion of the judgment that represents damages that have
   1-10  accrued at the time the judgment is rendered.  Judgments in
   1-11  wrongful death, personal injury, and property damage cases may not
   1-12  include prejudgment interest for that portion of the judgment that
   1-13  represents damages that accrue after the judgment is rendered.
   1-14  Except as provided by Subsections (b), (c), and (d) of this
   1-15  section, prejudgment interest accrues on the amount of the judgment
   1-16  during the period beginning on the 180th day after the date the
   1-17  defendant receives written notice of a claim or on the day the suit
   1-18  is filed, whichever occurs first, and ending on the day preceding
   1-19  the date judgment is rendered.
   1-20        SECTION 2.  This Act applies only to a judgment rendered on
   1-21  or after the effective date of this Act.  A judgment rendered
   1-22  before the effective date of this Act is governed by the law in
   1-23  effect at the time the judgment was rendered, and that law is
   1-24  continued in effect for that purpose.
    2-1        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-2  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-3  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-4  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-5  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-6  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-7  passage, and it is so enacted.