"It's not a fair situation," Randy Sorrels said.  Sorrels, who is president of the Houston Bar Association,  said even he's been stonewalled.

The 11 News Defenders discovered regular citizens are paying an ever-increasing bill for the 380 lawsuits filed against the the City from 2003-2005. In 2005 alone, the amount of your money the City spent on defending lawsuits involving vehicular crashes increased by nearly 40 percent.

Sorrels said many of the thousands of lawyers he represents also tell him: "The city is making a concerted effort to avoid paying the claims," he continued.  "They have definitely made that decision - that it's better to go to the courthouse as opposed to paying it out as a business would."

And Sorrels may be right.  Why? The Defenders have discovered that more than one in every five auto claims filed against the City of Houston end up in the courts.  That's 380 separate lawsuits in just three years.   And those lawsuits have already cost taxpayers more than one million dollars to defend, or $1,063,566, with more expenses to come.

Arturo Michel is the City Attorney. When we asked him if he was comfortable about the number of claims citizens are forced to take to litigation, he said, "I'm not sure I would say I'm comfortable with it."

"I tried to swerve, but I couldn't," Graham said. "He just turned right into me. There was a lot of blood in the car. … I almost lost my leg."

It turns out the law was written in 1969, back when man first landed on the moon, Woodstock was all the rage and gasoline only cost 25 cents a gallon.

Economists like Dr. Barton Smith of the University of Houston said if you take into account 37 years of inflation, the Legislature should increase the $100,000 cap to at least $500,000.

He says cities, such as Houston, also have a cap that hasn't been updated since 1969. That cap for cities stands at $250,000, which Smith said is still far too low, given today's medical costs.

This investigation has already prompted action.   Two days after the Defenders interviewed the city attorney, his office finally cut a check to the president of the Houston Bar Association.

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