Jesse Scheckner
Florida lawmakers have agreed to repeal a 35-year-old law that today bars adult children over 25 and their parents from suing for pain and suffering due to a wrongful death caused by medical malpractice.
Legislation (HB 6017) deleting the unique provision from state statutes cleared a final Senate vote 33-4.
An overwhelming share of House lawmakers approved the bill late last month. It will next go to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
HB 6017, unless vetoed by the Governor, will end what may refer to as Florida’s “free kill” law. In 1990, lawmakers expanded Florida’s Wrongful Death Act to add more classifications of survivors entitled to non-economic damages for general cases of wrongful death.
But the change excluded adult children 26 and older and parents of adult children from being able to sue for pain and suffering if their family member dies due to medical malpractice and is not married or doesn’t have minor children.
The rationale at the time was that doing otherwise would send medical malpractice insurance premiums skyrocketing and send doctors fleeing from the state. But according to the bill’s upper-chamber sponsor, Jacksonville Republican Sen. Clay Yarborough, the restriction should have never been passed.
“This is a 35-year-old law that needs to be repealed,” he said. “It’s unjust. It shouldn’t be on the books.”
The final vote Thursday came one day after Senators rejected an amendment, which Yarborough proffered, that would have capped awards at $1 million per incident.
Stuart Republican Sen. Gayle Harrell, a health care information technology executive, advocated for the limitation. She argued it would still deliver families recourse while penalizing negligent medical providers, but not to a degree that exacerbates the “tremendous shortfall” in primary and specialty care providers Florida has already.
She reiterated Thursday that she could only vote for the measure with the caps in place, as doing otherwise would be supporting legislation she warned will have a “devastating impact” on Florida’s already sky-high medical malpractice insurance premiums.
In a distraught speech on the Senate floor, Harrell told her colleagues how the “very contentious’ debate over HB 6017 has caused her distress in her district, where billboards have been erected in front of her neighborhood and near North River Shores that read, “Gayle Harrell supports profit over people.”
“(They’re) attacking me because of my stand on this bill,” she said. “And I can tell you that is very devastating.”
Nearly a dozen Senators from both sides of the aisle either praised Yarborough for the legislation, offered words of comfort and support to Harrell, or both.
Senate Majority Leader Jim Boyd commended Yarborough for taking an emotional and complicated issue and handling it “with style and grace and skill.” He told Harrell the attacks were unfair and called her “one of the most caring, compassionate Senators” in the chamber.
“An attack on you is an attack on us,” he added.
Tamarac Democratic Sen. Rosalind Osgood agreed, noting that public servants make “a big sacrifice” and are unfairly targeted, and the effects frequently impact their loved ones.
“We have children. We have grandchildren. We have to go back home to our communities. And to have cowards take shots at any member of this Senate is a very cowardly way for practicing democracy,” she said.
Hollywood independent Sen. Jason Pizzo said no one has done more to provide access to health care than Harrell. He also argued the exposure to lawsuits HB 6017 creates for doctors and hospitals will have a “de minimis” impact on premiums.
“If this was going to represent even 10%, 15%, 30% of outstanding cases, this would necessitate a long conversation,” he said.
“As it relates to rates, we need to do more to help. Those are the professions we should bending over backwards trying to help. But as we found over the last few years, we haven’t always done a lot to help even Florida families, much less medical malpractice rates or property insurance or any of those things. We have a lot of work to do.”
Later in the Senate session, Pizzo said he had made contact with the person behind the billboard targeting Harrell and that it would be taken down.
Broward County Democratic Sen. Barbara Sharief, a doctor of nursing practice, highlighted how hardworking and responsive Yarborough has been throughout the process of passing the bill.
“You’re probably the only Republican legislator that calls me at 10 o’clock at night about a question and answers it fully with notes and waits for me to write mine,” she said. “I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.”
During the committee process in both the Senate and House, where Fort Pierce Republican Rep. Dana Trabulsy and Orlando Democratic Rep. Johanna López carried the legislation, lawmakers heard from both sides of the argument.
Retired OBG/YN Miriam Ramirez said she had to stop delivering babies due to the cost of medical malpractice insurance. Daniel Daube, a physician and surgeon who has worked in Panama City for more than 30 years, said Florida needs to attract more practitioners in the state for better care — something HB 6017 and SB 734 would counteract.
Kathryn Magar, Vice President of Claims and Insurance at hospital operator Health First, said the legislation would make her company’s four medical facilities all but uninsurable.
“I’ve yet to meet a clinician who got into the medical profession to cause harm,” she said. “The ‘free kill’ term is, quite frankly, offensive.”
They and others called the legislation “compassionate but misdirected” and argued it would lead to an influx of wrongful death lawsuits and even higher insurance and health care costs.
But that opposition was met with testimonies from dozens of Floridians who lost loved ones and then had no recourse to hold those responsible accountable.
Ethan Lepez described maltreatment of his grandfather that included injection with hydrogen peroxide, which an autopsy deemed to be “homicide.” Darcy McGill, who buried her mother, called “free kill” Florida’s “dirty little secret.”
Cindy Jenkins, whose daughter died two years ago due to what she described as “horrific negligence” at a hospital, said medical malpractice premiums are high in Florida because Florida has a lot of medical malpractice.
“The way you decrease medical malpractice premiums is to stop medical malpractice,” she said. “My child is a free kill. I have no justice.”
Lauren Korniyenko’s 70-year-old mother died in a hospital two days after what she called an “uncomplicated surgery to repair a fractured hip.” Brevard County law enforcement cordoned off the room as a possible homicide scene, she said, and the autopsy revealed staff ignored at least 10 “critical signs of a surgical site infection” that led to her death.
“In an era focused on greater scrutiny of government spending, this law enables the waste and abuse of taxpayer money,” she said.
Trabulsy said before the House passed the bill 104-6 on March 26 that Florida has “a wonderful health care system” but mistakes and malpractice happens.”
“Nobody should lose a family member due to medical malpractice and lose the ability to access the courts just because they were the age of 25, unmarried with no dependents,” she said.
She noted that despite the carve-out lawmakers included in the 1990 law, Florida’s insurance rates haven’t declined.
“It’s about time we change this law,” she said, “and put the courts back into the hands of Floridians.”
