A study showing that Florida TV ad markets were inundated last year with legal services spots mentioning COVID-19 or the coronavirus has buoyed the hopes of tort-reform supporters pushing the state legislature to pass legal liability protections.
The analysis by the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) found that from March to December of 2020, trial attorneys spent $6.6 million to air almost 35,000 ads in Florida television markets. That amount represented 20 percent of all legal services ads aired nationwide over the same time period, making Florida the top spot for money spent on such trial attorney ads, ATRA reported earlier this month.
The report comes at the same time that Florida senators are considering bills to provide businesses, health-care providers, individuals and others with COVID-19 legal liability protections, provided they made reasonable efforts to follow state orders and health authorities’ recommendations during the pandemic.
Critics of the bills – SB 74 and 72, authored by Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-St. Petersburg) – have pointed out that coronavirus litigation tracking tools have found relatively few coronavirus-related lawsuits have been filed against businesses by customers or employees. But the ad data indicates that trial attorneys are currently seeking out clients for COVID-19-related litigation, according to the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
“The $6.6 million in advertising that has been spent in Florida alone soliciting COVID-19 lawsuits indicates what the Florida Chamber knew from the very beginning – plaintiffs’ lawyers want to cash in on the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic,” Carolyn Johnson, the chamber’s director of business economic development and innovation policy, told the Florida Record in an email.
The ads point to uncertain times for businesses and health-care providers dealing with the pandemic, according to Johnson. The chamber is encouraged by state lawmakers’ efforts to protect them from the costs of defending themselves against such litigation, she said.
“We are not even one year into the pandemic,” Johnson said, “and with a statute of limitations of two years, there’s plenty of time for opportunistic plaintiffs’ lawyers to file ‘gotcha’ lawsuits. Even if these cases would be hard to prove in court, we know some of these claims will be filed in the hopes of just getting a settlement.”
Morgan & Morgan, a personal injury law firm, aired 70,000 legal services ads nationwide at a cost of $10.5 million from March through December of last year, according to the ATRA report.