Jesse Scheckner
House lawmakers’ burning desire to peel back restrictions on lawsuits in Florida has attracted the ire – and a “Lawsuit Inferno” label – by the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA).
The Washington-based group branded the Legislature’s lower chamber with the worst designation possible in its annual “Legislative HeatCheck” report, lumping Florida in with states like Colorado, Illinois, New York, Virginia and West Virginia.
What they all had in common, ATRA President Sherman “Tiger” Joyce said in a statement, was a concerted effort by elected leaders to undo tort reforms that made each state’s legal and insurance landscapes more affordable.
“This year, the Florida House of Representatives made multiple, shameful attempts to repeal landmark legal reforms that they themselves just passed in 2023,” he said. “The Governor’s ink has barely dried on the landmark reforms put into place merely two years ago.”
Joyce said Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Senate ultimately blocked the attempted repeals and, perhaps not so coincidentally, 11 new insurance companies entered the state’s insurance market in February, and auto insurers cut rates by as much as 10.5%.
Notably, support for the ATRA includes major corporations with direct financial stakes in limiting lawsuits. Members have included Philip Morris, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Electric, Aetna, Geico and Nationwide, according to the Center for Justice and Democracy. It was founded in 1986 with support from the tobacco, insurance, chemical, auto and pharmaceutical industries.
The 2023 reforms championed by DeSantis and GOP legislative leaders, including then-House Speaker Paul Renner and then-Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, set limits on personal injury damages – tying compensation to actual medical costs – and eliminated the ability for successful litigants to collect attorneys’ fees from insurers.
Those and other measures, including a law banning assignment of benefits in auto glass claims, went “a long way to undo Florida’s reputation as a litigious hot spot,” the Washington-based Consumer Choice Center said in March. A Florida Chamber of Commerce poll in May found that only 15% of voters in the state believe those reforms went too far, and more voters than not support additional measures.
In the past Session, however, four measures the House approved ran counter to those aims, albeit for benevolent reasons. They included:
– HB 6017 by Jacksonville Sen. Clay Yarborough, Fort Pierce Republican Rep. Dana Trabulsy and Orlando Democratic Rep. Johanna López, which would have repealed a 35-year-old law dubbed “free kill” that bars adult children over 25 and their parents from suing for pain and suffering due to a wrongful death caused by medical malpractice. The measure cleared both the House and Senate with significant support. DeSantis vetoed it in late May.
– Two bills (HB 1551, HB 947) that were added as amendments to two other bills and would have, respectively, established a “loser pays” rule for insurance lawsuits and changed evidentiary strictures in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits. Dania Beach Republican Rep. Hillary Cassel, HB 1551’s sponsor, argued the changes in her bill would create a more even playing field than the current “one-way attorney’s fees” now in place, ensuring that all parties in a lawsuit have “skin in the game.” Miami Republican Rep. Omar Blanco, who carried HB 947, said his bill would nix limits on evidence in legal proceedings and afford more flexibility in court for parties to include any information they believe is pertinent to the case. The Senate rejected the amendments, which the ATRA said would have enabled lawyers to “sue insurers with little risk.” It allowed suits to include “inflated ‘sticker price’” medical costs.
– HB 1181 by Republican Reps. Danny Alvarez of Hillsborough County and Meg Weinberger of Palm Beach Gardens would have replaced Florida’s no-fault auto insurance policy with a fault-based model. The measure, which drew the in-person support of hundreds of motorcyclists at the Capitol in March, died in its final House committee stop. DeSantis vetoed a similar proposal in 2021 and signaled he’d do the same this year if HB 1181 reached his desk.
“We are grateful to Gov. Ron DeSantis and Senate President Ben Albritton for blocking these bills and refusing to give in to pressure,” Joyce said. “Undoing these protections would invite a surge of lawsuits, threaten access to care, and undermine the very progress that moved Florida forward. We encourage the House to heed these warnings and rein in these attempts to expand liability in the future.”
The House’s return to the “Judicial Hellhole” list – on which Florida once held the No. 1 spot – comes two years after the ATRA named the state a “Point of Light” following the 2023 reforms.
House Speaker Daniel Perez, whose relationship with the Governor has been unsteady since he took the gavel in November, defended this year’s tort bills, which he said were not backed by trial lawyers.
“Floridians are realistic. They understand that there are trade-offs. They understand that in a state battered by hurricanes, insurance will be a challenge,” he said. “But they need to know that our state’s insurance laws are not being written by and for the insurance companies.”
