A study found that Floridians filed more than half of all personal injury cases in the United States last year.
Some 62.1% – or 28,342 – were filed statewide compared to the national average of 11.65%, according to data from personal injury law firm Anidjar & Levine.
“It just shows you how wide open and gaping the laws were,” said Tom Gaitens, Florida executive director of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. “Basically, our system was the wild west of legal reform. There was no legal reform for decades.”
The study further found that Ohio ranked in second place with 3,572 for most PI cases followed by 2,810 in New Jersey, 1,596 in South Carolina, and 2,887 in Illinois.
Gaitens blames it on politics.
“Whichever party was in office, they were able to get loopholes placed in the statute, and that allowed them to exploit these situations,” Gaitens told the Florida Record. “It's not an accident that those states have been on a Judicial Hellholes list for a long time.”
The fact that the study was released by Anidjar & Levine indicates that even PI attorneys are aware the system needs to be reformed, according to Gaitens.
"That's the dichotomy of the market we live in here in Florida," he said. "You do have good attorneys and you have bad attorneys, and you can make a case for either side of that motivation."
As previously reported in the Florida Record, conservatives believe the Sunshine State’s legal climate was improved by a tort reform package signed into law by DeSantis earlier this year.
American Tort Reform Foundation previously ranked Florida at No. 1 in 2018 and No. 2 in 2019 because of its excessive litigation, frivolous lawsuits, and outrageous damages. But now, Florida does not appear on the list at all.
“That whole picture paints this problem that these lawsuit abuses that occurred in Florida are the very reason that homeowners have seen their insurance coverage skyrocket in cost over the last three years," Gaitens said in an interview.
Although the ATRF’s 2022-23 Judicial Hellholes report determined that Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Supreme Court have taken positive steps to address lawsuit abuses in the Sunshine State, it also claims the Legislature needs to do more.
“People need to know how abusive the system has been against them,” Gaitens added. “It harms everybody. It raises the cost of doing business for everybody. It increases the cost on Floridians on everything from insurance to goods and anything you purchase.”