Guest Author
As with most issues, there is another side to legislation pertaining to punitive damages that is now being considered by the Florida Legislature. A Tampa Bay Times editorial, “Don’t change law to limit damages for Big Tobacco” on Feb. 26, suggests this bill is a bailout, and one that changes the rules long after the affected cases began. As president of one of Florida’s leading business organizations, I want to be sure your readers hear the other side of the issue.
Almost 16 years ago Florida’s Legislature passed one of the best punitive damages laws in the country. The 1999 law provided reasonable limits on the amount of punitive damages that could be awarded in a lawsuit, generally three or four times the amount of compensatory damages. The law also established that punitive damages should not be awarded over and over for the same conduct. A very measured law, which I was involved in passing when I was in the Legislature, it has no impact on compensatory damages.
The legislation now being considered — SB 978/HB 1067 — would simply ensure that 16 years later the law will apply to every case in Florida. One would have thought that after all this time it would apply to every lawsuit still before our courts, but that’s not the case.
There are a few thousand cases — some even filed after the 1999 law went into effect — that somehow aren’t governed by that law. It only seems logical that the punitive damages law should apply to those cases.
You hint in your editorial that the law will eliminate such cases, but that just isn’t true. The cases will continue, with compensatory damages unaffected by this bill, and possibly also punitive damages as permitted by the same punitive damages statute that applies to every other business and individual in all other cases pending in our courts.
So who would be opposed to this common-sense reform? The answer is simple: trial lawyers. Why? The answer is also simple: the hundreds of millions of dollars in contingency fees they collect in litigation, including in cases with unlimited punitive damages, often awarded over and over again for the same conduct.
With no real argument, you state that these defendants are mainly tobacco companies, and there can never be enough punishment for them. However, let’s not forget that those companies settled litigation with Florida in 1997, and as part of that settlement the state released claims for punitive damages. In return, our state has received over $7.5 billion in payments since then, and will receive hundreds of millions more every year. That money is spent by the Legislature to benefit all Floridians.
So the picture is not quite the one the Times paints in its editorial. As the leader of a business organization that worries about the effect of our litigation climate on business growth, I firmly believe that it’s time to make sure the same set of laws apply to everyone. That’s good for businesses and the people of Florida. That is what these bills would achieve, and they deserve our support and the support of the Legislature.
Tom Feeney is president of the Associated Industries of Florida.
