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By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House is continuing to move their accuracy in damages bill even though the bill is stalled in the Senate. The bill specifies the evidence juries hear for the value of past, present, or future medical expenses used to set damages in personal injury lawsuits. The House bill…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel SB 1828, a bill designed to put requirements on litigation financing to protect consumers, but not to outright ban litigation financing, was effectively killed by the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee on February 19, 2020 when the Committee ran out of meeting time before voting on the bill. The…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The Senate asbestos trust claims bill cleared its second committee on February 18, 2020 with a technical amendment to remove the definition of “trust governance document” because it is not used anywhere in the bill. The Senate bill was not controversial in committee and has one committee left. Veterans…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Bills specifying the evidence juries hear for the value of past, present, or future medical expenses used to set damages in personal injury lawsuits are moving this year. The House bill cleared its first committee two weeks ago and has two committees left. The Senate bill cleared its…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel A bill designed to put requirements on litigation financing to protect consumers, but not to outright ban litigation financing, passed the House Appropriations Committee on February 5, 2020. The bill was not amended. Specifically, HB 7041: Requires a litigation financier to register with the Department of State and file…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel Bills specifying the evidence juries hear for the value of past, present, or future medical expenses used to set damages in personal injury lawsuits were approved by their first committees of reference in the House and Senate this week. The House bill was significantly amended to bring it…
By: Greenberg Traurig On December 12, 2019, the House Civil Justice Subcommittee held a discussion on consumer litigation financing. The materials from the discussion may be found here. Following the comments below, Chair Bob Rommel noted that this Legislature generally looks to deregulate industries rather than establish new regulations. He previously worked in the auto…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel In an unexpected turn of events and out of the blue, on May 23, 2018, the new Florida Supreme Court issued an 5-2 opinion receding from a 2018 decision that retained the “Frye” standard of determining expert witness reliability even after the Florida legislature enacted the “Daubert” standard in…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House tort reform bill that has been significantly pared down to cover only accuracy in damages for past unpaid medical expenses passed its last committee on April 9, 2019 with one amendment. The Senate accuracy in damages bill has not yet been heard in committee. Thus, it…
By: Katrina Callaway, FIC General Counsel The House tort reform bill was significantly pared down during its second committee hearing on March 28, 2019. The pared down version passed with a 13-7 vote. HB 17 originally dealt with products liability, calculation of medical damages, and a cap on noneconomic damages (e.g., damages for pain and…