Bill limiting lawsuits advances after Kemp makes concession to GOP senators
A bill limiting third-party funding of lawsuits hasn’t come before the Senate.
Editor’s note: The video above is from previous coverage.
ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Georgia senators voted 33-21 on Friday to support Gov. Brian Kemp’s top-priority legislation to limit lawsuits, but not before some of Kemp’s fellow Republicans made one compromise in exchange for the votes necessary to secure a majority.
Senate Bill 68 moves on to the House for more debate as Kemp continues to marshal a political and lobbying push. A second bill that would limit third-party funding of lawsuits has not yet come before the full Senate.
Atlanta News First Investigates has covered the issues surrounding tort reform in Georgia extensively, as businesses in the state struggle to find insurance and community leaders say they’re becoming food and medical deserts.
One of the biggest issues in the bill surrounds what’s known as premises liability, where property owners are held liable for crime that happens in and around their property based on past crimes anywhere in the area.
Affordable housing complexes in metro Atlanta have faced numerous lawsuits for injuries that happen outside of their properties, despite the amount of security that they’ve had.
“We want to be good neighbors, but I don’t think anybody can stop crime from occurring,” said Laurel Hart, Columbia Residential’s vice president of asset management. “At some of our properties, like our (Senior Residences) Mechanicsville property, we spend close to $1 million on security each year in addition to insurance.”
Many times, property owners settle cases regardless of fault because they don’t feel protected by the laws, and they say insurance companies are no longer offering coverages such as assault and battery, because they too feel the law does not protect them.
Kemp’s bill limits premises liability to what a property owner can control, defining things like crimes that are within 500 yards of a property and if the owner had prior knowledge of the specific person who committed the crime that resulted in an injury.
The bill also stops attorneys from recovering fees twice for the same case. It allows separate trials for assigning responsibility and determining damages. It aims to allow businesses to get a baseless case dismissed before engaging in expensive pretrial preparation.
Senate President Pro Tem John Kennedy, a Macon Republican sponsoring Kemp’s measure, said Friday that it’s “an effort to balance our civil justice system and stabilize cost for health care providers, job creators and most importantly, Georgia consumers.”
“The cost of doing nothing is incredible,” Kennedy said. ”Our system is broken and we’ve got to fix it.”
Proponents say the legislation, which they call tort reform, would help businesses, physicians, property owners and others save money from lawsuits and lower insurance rates. Opponents say there’s no proof insurance rates would drop and worry people wouldn’t win compensation when they’re wronged.
Rep. Tanya Miller (D-Atlanta) said Kemp’s tort reform will only help insurance companies. “Insurance industries are always trying to figure out ways to maximize their profit,” she said. “It’s the same thing with assault and battery exclusions.”
Miller said the data from the Data Analysis for Tort Reform Act is not reliable proof that rising premiums and exclusions are due to the cost burden that insurance companies take on under the current laws.
She co-authored HB 345 to prohibit insurance companies from raising liability insurance rates for five years.
“What we’re seeing here is not about fixing a broken system,” said state Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes (D-Duluth). “It’s about creating a manufactured crisis to justify stripping away consumer protections and handing even more power to billion-dollar insurance corporations.”
Senators rejected an amendment by Islam Parkes to limit insurance rate increases to the rate of inflation.
A last-minute compromise softened one of the bill’s provisions governing how jurors determine medical damages. Right now, jurors only see bills sent by hospitals and physicians before insurers bargain them down and pay for part. Kemp wanted jurors only to see the actual cost that injured people paid, arguing that paying the face value of the bills meant people were collecting “phantom” damages. The agreement says jurors will see both and decide on appropriate damages.
“What we’ve come up with is, tell the jury the truth,” said state Sen. Bo Hatchett (R-Cornelia). ”If the jury wants to know if the plaintiff has insurance, show them. If the jury wants to know how much the bill was, show them.”
The deal averted opposition from Hatchett and some other Republicans who are lawyers, clearing the way for the measure to pass the Senate.
Lobbyists on both sides are spending heavily and Kemp has threatened a special session if his bills don’t pass. Friday, before senators voted, clerks handed out letter after letter from business groups supporting the measure.
On Thursday, Democrat senators lead by Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones proposed an alternative to part of Kemp’s bill, which they say goes too far.
Jones said Senate Bill 223 would set restrictions on when property owners can be sued for injuries resulting from crimes on their property, and shield businesses from liability if they implement security measures. It also clarifies that being in a high-crime area doesn’t make an owner liable.
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