Law360, New York ( December 23, 2015, 11:08 AM EST) -- The Texas Supreme Court's ruling in Nabors Well Services Ltd. v. Romero, 456 S.W.3d 553 (Tex. 2015) has reopened the national debate about whether courts should admit evidence of seat belt nonusage in lawsuits arising from motor vehicle crashes. The Romero decision reversed the course that Texas courts had followed for more than forty years to prohibit evidence showing that a crash-involved motorist had failed to buckle up. The ruling comes at a time when several state legislatures have begun to question the wisdom of seemingly inconsistent laws that mandate seat belt usage for drivers and vehicle occupants, but then preclude juries from considering evidence that seat belts were not used or severely limit the extent to which such nonusage evidence can affect a damages award. The Texas Supreme Court's opinion recognizes that, in the time since such policies were adopted, the legal landscape has evolved toward broader notions of comparative fault, including recognition that seat belt use is a necessary action to guard against foreseeable risks. This assessment applies not just in Texas but in a number of jurisdictions that constrain the use of seat belt nonusage evidence....