‘Tort reform’ distorts reality and favors insurers over victims | Editorial [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]

The lawsuit suppression legislation moving through the state Capitol is a brutal piece of work unsupported by any evidence that it would be good for anybody but the insurance lobby, its big-business allies, legislators who rely on their campaign contributions and its biggest booster, Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Even former President Donald Trump denounces the bill as “the worst insurance scam in the entire country.” That may be hyperbolic, but Trump is on the right side — the populist side — of this issue, and DeSantis is on the wrong side.

The legislation (HB 837, SB 236) is unfair to everyone hurt or killed in a car crash or burglarized, raped or killed because of an apartment complex’s lax security or just about anyone who might have a valid claim for personal injury or wrongful death.

The goal of this mislabeled “reform” is fewer lawsuits and smaller damages for victims.

The people, more than their lawyers, are the intended targets of this political conspiracy, which may steamroll through the Senate as soon as this week. It is not a “reform” of the tort system; it’s a distortion.

Rate relief? Forget it

Floridians pay among the nation’s highest rates for auto insurance, but to blame it all on lawsuits is deceptively simplistic. Besides, nothing in the legislation would provide rate relief for policyholders.

Unlike the property insurance industry, which just got a big bailout from Tallahassee, companies that insure for personal and corporate liability aren’t fleeing Florida and don’t seem to be in any financial peril.

But nothing we’ve seen describes their overall financial health or touches on whether state regulators force them to pay claims fairly and on time. Nothing compares Florida’s lawsuit statistics to other states. Nothing distinguishes between rising expenses due to inflation and the costs attributed to lawsuits. In this slavishly pro-business Capitol, there’s no estimate of the possible windfalls from these bills and no requirement that they be disclosed, naturally.

Floridians are learning, thanks to the Washington Post, how property insurance companies shaft Florida policyholders by arbitrarily lowballing independent adjuster recommendations on Hurricane Ian damage claims. Nothing in these bills bans that practice. If anything, they would make it harder to collect bad-faith damages from liability insurance companies, who have followed the property insurers to the Tallahassee trough.

The business model of an insurance company is anti-consumer: Collect as much premium as the law and competition will allow and hold onto it as long as possible to profit from investing it. That’s a built-in incentive to delay paying claims and to skimp on them.

State insurance regulators are responsible for seeing that companies keep enough money in reserve. They don’t do so well at regulating profiteering.

The policyholder’s remedy? Hire a lawyer and sue the insurer for bad faith.

Protecting negligence

The bills stipulate that “mere negligence alone is insufficient to constitute bad faith.” In other words, your company could misplace your injury claim behind a filing cabinet while your bills pile up and the sheriff brings an eviction notice — but owes you nothing for its negligence.

One of the most odious provisions in these bills hollows out the good the Legislature did last year in memory of Miya Marcano, a 19-year-old Valencia College student from Pembroke Pines, murdered by a maintenance worker who had a master key to her apartment.

Last year’s bill required apartment owners to take specified safety steps. This year’s legislation would give them a presumption against liability if they follow them, regardless of what other negligence might turn up. The Marcanos and their lawyers say it would undercut their lawsuit against the apartment owner because the terms apply to all pending claims.

Here are other problems in the legislation as passed by the House:

* It cuts from four years to two the time allowed to file a negligence lawsuit. All that will do, trial lawyers say, “is get people to file first, investigate later, prompting more lawsuits, not fewer.

* Plaintiffs can collect nothing if they’re found more than 50% at fault in an accident. That seems superficially fair but it invites defense lawyers to lay too much blame on plaintiffs. A motorist whose carelessness kills or injures a biker could argue that his failure to wear a helmet (not required in Florida) was more to blame. That’s why bikers are lobbying furiously against the bill.

* Cuts in attorneys’ fees will make it harder for people to go to court, and potentially curbs medical payments below what doctors and hospital charge.

These bills feed on the widely held but debatable belief that Americans are more prone to filing lawsuits than anywhere else. In fact, nearly half the state court workloads are contract disputes rather than injury-related.

Responsible lawmakers will vote against these bills while supporters ought to be hauled into court — for deceptive advertising.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at [email protected].

©2023 South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Visit sun-sentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.