A major Florida tort reform bill designed to curb excessive civil lawsuits is headed to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The Florida Senate passed House Bill 837 with a 23-15 vote March 23. DeSantis could sign the legislation into law as early as Friday.
Authored by Reps. Tommy Gregory (R-Lakewood Ranch) and Tom Fabricio (R-Miami Lakes), the bill passed the Florida House of Representatives on an 80-31 vote. The bill could put the brakes on lawsuit abuses that supporters say have burdened the Florida economy.
Business groups say the measure will protect small businesses from being saddled with revenue-sapping litigation.
“This is something small businesses have clamored for,” Bill Herrle, the National Federation of Independent Business’ Florida executive director, said in a prepared statement. “House Bill 837 won’t stop anyone from going to court. If you’ve been hurt, you have a constitutional right to seek redress, but HB 837 brings the scales of justice back into balance after being weighted in favor of plaintiffs’ attorneys for so many years.”
The Florida NFIB this month launched a radio and online ad campaign to encourage Florida residents to urge their representatives and senators to support the reform.
“Billboard and personal injury trial lawyers who advertise on TV for too long have taken advantage of Florida’s bottom-five legal climate to line their own pockets,” Mark Wilson, the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s president and CEO, said on March 17, the day the House passed HB 837. “... Today was a significant step in ending this abuse costing Florida families, consumers and local businesses.
HB 837 would put an end to attorney-fee multipliers in most cases, shorten the time period when negligence lawsuits may be filed, tighten standards for determining medical expenses in certain civil actions, limit one-way attorney-fee provisions in insurance claims litigation and make it more difficult to prove an insurer acted in bad faith.
An email from Cole Scott & Kissane, one of Florida's largest insurance defense law firms, to its attorneys says plaintiffs firms have moved to file tens of thousands of claims before the new law goes into effect.
The email says Matt Morgan, partner with Morgan & Morgan, said the Orlando-based firm will have filed 25,000 insurance claim cases by this week. Insurance carriers will have five days to respond. If policy limits are not tendered, full litigation will follow. Morgan & Morgan is one of the country's largest plaintiffs firms.
"The defendants won't initially be served but the carriers will be sent a letter demanding the policy limits," the email from Richard Cole, a partner with Cole Scott & Kissane, stated.
Critics of the measure say it will allow "rich and powerful corporations using government to take away the rights of everyday Floridians."
“In just three short weeks, Florida lawmakers rushed through some of the largest rights-grabbing legislation in recent history," Florida Justice Association President Curry Pajcic said. "This bill significantly limits the ability of Floridians to hold wrongdoers accountable and effectively gives Big Insurance the keys to our state and our court process.”
“HB 837 is a direct assault on the rights of every Floridian by insurance companies and corporate elites who think they can dictate which rights should be preserved and which can be tossed aside. This legislation weakens accountability for insurance companies and multi-billion-dollar corporations by creating roadblocks to the ability of average Floridians to be able to access the courts.”
Florida lawmakers also have introduced legislation that would place limitations on litigation filed against senior living facilities.