§ 140.003.Conflicts with Other Law

A short supremacy provision with unusually wide reach.

In the event of a conflict between this chapter and another law, including a rule of procedure or evidence, this chapter controls to the extent of the conflict.

Naming rules of procedure and evidence is what makes the section notable. A conflicts provision ordinarily addresses other statutes; this one reaches the rules the Supreme Court promulgates.

That matters because the chapter does several things a procedural rule might otherwise govern — it directs how attorney’s fees are apportioned, forbids a fee award in a declaratory judgment action, and displaces a common law doctrine.

The made-whole doctrine is the clearest example of what it displaces. The recovery provision says expressly that the common law rule requiring an injured party to be made whole before a subrogee recovers does not apply — and this section forecloses an argument that some other source of law reinstates it.

"To the extent of the conflict" is the ordinary limiting formula, so other law continues to operate wherever it can stand alongside the chapter.

The provision reflects how contested this area is. Health plan subrogation involves the plan contract, the insurance code, common law doctrines, federal preemption, and the rules governing fee awards — and the Legislature wanted one answer rather than an argument about which source governed.