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House to vote on limiting damages

The bill would repeal a centuries-old legal tenet that requires some wealthy defendants to pay more in civil lawsuits.

By JONI JAMES
Published March 16, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida House of Representatives is expected to vote today to limit the damages that deep-pocketed defendants have to pay in civil lawsuits. But the question remains, as it has for years, will the Florida Senate go along?

House Bill 145 aims to repeal what is known as joint-and-several liability, long the bane of the state's business lobby. The legal tenet first established centuries ago in British courts says that deep-pocket defendants can be required to pay more than their share of liability to ensure that an injured plaintiff is fully compensated.

"People should pay for what they did wrong, not for the wrong of others," bill sponsor Rep. Don Brown, R-DuFuniak Springs, said during floor debate Wednesday. "This is unjust and it makes no common sense."

Brown's pitch, aligned with that pushed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, Associated Industries of Florida and other major business groups: That joint-and-several liability increases liability insurance costs for businesses, which inevitably are passed on to consumers.

The trial bar has countered, as did Democrats on the House floor Wednesday, that changing such a basic tenet in civil law could leave victims without compensation, eventually forcing them to rely on government services to live.

Opponents contend tort changes made in 1999 by the state Legislature have already limited the legal exposure of wealthy defendants - by excluding non-economic or "pain and suffering" damages from joint-and-several liability and capping how much wealthy defendants may have to pay.

"Is it morally right for a victim who had nothing to do with an accident perpetrated on them to be told they can't have their medical bills paid for?" Rep. Curtis Richardson, D-Tallahassee, said.

But Democrats' arguments largely went unnoticed Wednesday. And when Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Pompano Beach, offered a trial-lawyer-backed amendment to soften the repeal's impact, just four of the chamber's 85 Republicans voted with Democrats. Only 61 votes are needed to pass legislation in the 120-member House.

The business lobby does have its best shot in years. For the first time, a Senate president, Tom Lee, has guaranteed a floor vote on the measure as a favor to House Speaker Allan Bense, who has said the repeal of joint-and-several liability is his top priority.

But Lee hasn't promised passag e and it's still unclear whether business groups have secured enough support among rank-and-file Republicans. Traditionally, the Senate has been far more sympathetic to the views of trial lawyers. The membership of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where the bill is expected to be heard next week, is no exception.

The committee's chairman, Sen. Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, a longtime supporter of repealing joint-and-several, declined to make any predictions Wednesday. He acknowledged he's not sure he can even get it out of his committee, made up of three Democrats and five Republicans, without significant changes.

"There a pressure point that there is no use passing the bill if it doesn't at least satisfy the gentlemen's agreement (between Bense and Lee)," Webster said. "But the other pressure point is (that) we have to get a bill and it has to at least appeal to five members of the committee."

Joni James can be reached at 850 224-7263 or jjames@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 16, 2006, 02:00:27]