Jesse Scheckner
Legislation to revise Florida’s rules for payouts in government negligence lawsuits for the first time in 15 years just passed on the House floor, but it faces a gloomy future in the Senate.
House members voted 103-11 for the bill (HB 301), which would update the state’s sovereign immunity statutes that restrict how people can seek compensation for government carelessness, and for how much.
The measure, effective Oct. 1, would raise Florida’s current payout caps of $200,000 for one person and $300,000 for each incident to $500,000 and $1 million, respectively. They were last adjusted in 2010 and are long overdue an increase, according to the bill’s sponsor, Sarasota Republican Rep. Fiona McFarland.
Sovereign immunity is a centuries-old standard in all but 11 states that shields state and local governments from having to settle pricey lawsuits without their consent. For victims to receive payments above the state-set caps, lawmakers must pass a special measure called a claims bill.
The process of doing so is akin to a “very difficult funnel,” McFarland said, because it requires claimants to advance through increasingly narrow steps for which the chance of success is also diminishing.
“When the government commits negligence, in order to bring a lawsuit, you have to find an attorney who wants to do it. The financial motivation has not been there. And even then, once you do successfully bring a suit, whether it’s settled or a jury finds the government guilty, then … you have to hope and pray you can find a bill sponsor and a lobbyist … in a year when we’re amenable to hearing claims bills,” she said.
“It’s true it will increase (cities and counties’) liability and increase their financial burden. And we don’t like that. I don’t care for that very much. But what I do care for is all of the people who reached out to me who weren’t able to seek redress against their government when they were the victim of negligence because the financial caps were just so low that no attorney would represent them.”
While HB 301 would keep Florida’s sovereign immunity protections intact, it would markedly alter them. Local governments and government entities, like safety net hospitals, would be able to waive their sovereign immunity protections and settle lawsuits and claims against them above the state-set caps without requiring the passage of a claims bill. It would also prohibit insurers from conditioning payouts on the passage of claims bills and extend the statute of limitations for lawsuits against governments to match those for claims against private companies.
McFarland’s bill originally set the new caps at $1 million and $3 million, but she amended it last week to lower the levels with a provision that they will increase to $600,000 and $1.1 million in 2030.
That was enough to sway several House lawmakers to support the measure, including North Miami Democratic Rep. Dotie Joseph, who acknowledged that the proposed changes would likely lead to fiscal strains for less well-to-do cities and counties. She invited those governments to contact her “to see if we can find you some kind of appropriate insurance to help bridge that gap.”
“But that being said … our claims bill process in its current form is a hot mess,” she said. “People should not have to go through all of that in order to get the kind of relief that they have fought for, are entitled to and oftentimes been deemed by a court of law (to deserve).”
Representatives from several small counties and cities spoke against HB 301 during its committee stops. Auburndale Mayor Dorthea Bogert said the bill would create “a niche market” for litigation against governments, “especially when they see these increased limits.”
Bob Harris, a lobbyist for the Panhandle Area Education Consortium, argued that the bill could bankrupt small municipalities and school districts. He said that while it is noble of McFarland to want to hold governments as accountable to citizens as companies are to consumers, private and public entities are only so comparable.
“We’re not Walmart or Amazon. If we have a problem with our school buses, we can’t just stop transporting them. We can’t close our gyms down. We can’t close our schools. The law says we have to let people come in who slip and fall and are hurt,” he said. “The amount being recommended, I don’t know how we can possibly afford that.”
Others, like Latoya Harridon-Lodge of the Florida Justice Association, called Florida’s existing payout caps “woefully inadequate” and praised the bill.
“We all know the claims bill process is very cumbersome,” she said. “We’ve sat here and we’ve seen that there are times where either the Governor doesn’t want to sign a claims bill or Speakers do not want to entertain claims bills, and what we’ve done is politicize the pain of those who have been injured as a result of government negligence.”
Republican Reps. Linda Chaney, Tom Fabricio, Anne Gerwig, Jennifer Kincart Johnson, Randy Maggard, Patt Maney, Lauren Melo, Toby Overdorf and John Snyder joined Democratic Reps. Jose Alvarez and Robin Bartleman to vote against HB 301.
Despite the House vote, the bill isn’t likely to pass this year. Its upper-chamber companion (SB 1570) by St. Petersburg Republican Sen. Nick DiCeglie still hasn’t been heard, and with Sine Die a little over two weeks away, the legislation’s future appears dimmer by the day.
McFarland acknowledged as much in an interview for Florida Politics’ print offshoot, IN SESSION.
“We’re running out of time,” she said. “And it does look like it’s dead on the Senate side. … I think the moment has passed, though I don’t want to speak for the Senate.”
Florida Politics contacted DiCeglie for comment but received no response.
