If a Hillsborough Circuit Court Judge’s ruling that the new tort reform statute applies retroactively is upheld, Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA) Florida executive director Tom Gaitens said it will speed up the ability to mitigate the filing of thousands of legal actions intended to skirt the legislation.
A slew of legal actions were reportedly filed in March by trial attorneys trying to beat the deadline of the law’s effectiveness and the consequences imposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis' tort reform package.
As previously reported in the Florida Record, Morgan & Morgan alone allegedly filed 25,000 complaints prior to the effective date of Gov. DeSantis' overhaul of tort reform as a way to protect the plaintiff’s interest under the outgoing law.
“They won’t get to a real settlement phase because trial attorneys will probably drop them since they understand they don't qualify for bad faith, the new contingency D changes, the changes in letters of protection, in particular, or assignment of benefits," Gaitens told the Florida Record.
Hillsborough Circuit Court Judge Ann Leigh Gaylor Moe ruled in a 40-page opinion in June that HB 837 applies retroactively to lawsuits filed before the law’s effective date because the changes it made were procedural.
“Ultimately, these trial attorneys want to get paid, and if these cases lack merit, like many of them probably do, making it retroactive will have a lot of these dismissed long before they become encumbering to the system,” Gaitens said in an interview.
The lawsuit that Moe presided over was filed by a Morgan and Morgan attorney on behalf of plaintiffs Sharon Sapp and Stacy Chaney regarding evidence of past and future medical treatment or services expenses.
Morgan & Morgan did not respond to requests for comment.
Section 30 of HB 837, which became law on March 24, states that the changes should apply to causes of action filed after the act’s effective date, not before.
“The ruling will have a huge effect on speeding up the positive impact of HB 837,” Gaitens said. “It could shorten the timeline of the ability of the law to take effect by helping identify how many of these lawsuits are truly frivolous.”
Hillsborough's ruling highlights the manner in which a plaintiff proves medical expenses in their case under the new law imposed by HB 837 versus the prior statute.
HB 837 also tightened standards for determining medical expenses in certain civil actions.
“Knowing that a lot of those lawsuits were simply pushed through to inundate the system, a lot of those will never see the light of day if this is upheld,” Gaitens added.