House panel OKs new lawsuit limits in heavily lobbied sovereign immunity bill

Yahoo

19-02-2025

Rep. Fiona McFarland is sponsoring legislation to increase sovereign immunity limits. The bill has drawn more than 100 lobbyist registrations. (Photo by Florida House)
People injured by the state government or any of its subdivisions would have an easier time suing for damages and could receive larger payouts under a bill approved by a House panel Wednesday morning.
In a near-unanimous vote, the House Civil Justice Subcommittee voted to approve HB 301, by Rep. Fiona McFarland.
The bill increases the state's sovereign immunity limits, taking them from $200,000 per person to $1 million and from $300,000 per occurrence to $3 million. Moreover, the bill makes clear that political subdivisions can settle cases beyond those limits without having to obtain advance approval in the form of a special legislative act.
It also prohibits insurance policies from conditioning payment of settlements on the enactment of a claims bill.
All changes that lobbyist took aim at during the meeting.
Sovereign immunity stems from the Latin phrase 'rex non potest peccare,' which translates to 'the king cannot commit a legal wrong.' In legal terms, it refers to the state's authority to exempt itself as a legal sovereign from civil lawsuits, although the state does allow negligence claims against itself and its subdivisions — agencies, cities, counties, and public hospitals — within limits.
Injured parties can sue for damages and collect within the liability thresholds established by law, but if they win awards in excess of the limits they must go to the Legislature in the form of what's called a claims bill to collect the payment.
The claims bill process is lengthy and allows the defendant to challenge a jury verdict.
Once a claims bill is filed, each chamber's presiding officer refers it to a special master, who essentially reconsiders the jury's recommendation. Claims bills also go before House and Senate committees that consider special masters' recommendations. Ultimately, the bills must pass in both chambers.
It's not unusual for claims bills to take years to pass, if ever.
I'm pleased as punch when I walked around the Capitol yesterday, when I saw every local government, every hospital, I think the entire lobby corps was walking around yesterday, and this might be the only bill that the House is hearing this week, so I feel very special.
– Rep. Fiona McFarland
There are more than 100 lobbyist registrations on the bill, which is opposed by the Florida League of Cities, the Florida Association of Counties, the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida, and school boards across the state.
Conversely, the bill is supported by the Florida Justice Association, which represents the state's trial attorneys.
McFarland joked about the amount of lobbying taking place on the bill during her closing remarks Wednesday morning.
'I'm pleased as punch when I walked around the Capitol yesterday, when I saw every local government, every hospital, I think the entire lobby corps was walking around yesterday, and this might be the only bill that the House is hearing this week, so I feel very special,' she said.
'But I'm glad you're hearing their voices. I'm hearing voices too,' she said, rattling off a long list of names of Florida residents who have been injured by the government and its political subdivisions who have filed claims bills to receive their payments. 'I hear those voices.'
McFarland, who filed similar legislation last year, promised she would work with interested parties on the legislation as it moves through the committee process. The bill heads to the House Budget and Judiciary committees next.
McFarland said she was willing to discuss the new proposed sovereign immunity limits but wasn't quite sure where they should be set.
She won't negotiate on one key point though — that the new limits won't apply retroactively. Currently, the bill has an Oct. 1 effective date, although McFarland said she would be willing to reconsider that.
Several lobbyists on Wednesday testified that the $1 million and $3 million limits would jack up their insurance costs and those increases would ultimately have to be borne by the local taxpayer. Governmental entities that are self-insured, and therefore on the hook to pay the claim out of their reserves, would be forced to request a special appropriation from the Legislature to cover the increased liability limits.
McFarland, though, noted that cities, counties, and other governmental entities routinely seek funding requests for special projects and that she herself has filed an appropriations request this year for solar panels. 'I'm going to fight really strong for that. My local government tells me they need it. But I would also like to fight really strongly for each of the claims bills that come up. '
Panhandle Area Educational Consortium lobbyist Bob Harris said increasing the limits will boost the number of lawsuits filed against his clients, school boards in small counties in that region.
'We know there will be more cases. If this happens, you increase the rates to $1 million and $3 million. We call it the pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow syndrome. If you increase the size of the pot of gold, more people are going to go for that. And again, we know more cases will result in more cost for our school districts,' Harris said.
An attorney who defends the school districts when sued, Harris described a number of lawsuits on his desk that have been filed against the school districts, involving softball players suing their coach for not giving them enough play time or a football player suing his coach for penalizing him for missing practices. Another parent is suing a school district for negligence after their child 'got his butt beat' in a physical education class.
'It's those kind of lawsuits that we're facing. And if you increase these caps and the amount that's being recommended, I don't know how we possibly can afford that,' he said.
In addition to opposing the increase in caps, Harris said that authorizing governmental entities to settle claims beyond the sovereign immunity limits would eviscerate the idea of limits altogether.
'The one thing I can negotiate with when I'm dealing with plaintiff lawyers on these issues is the cap, the sovereign immunity caps. If you take those away, I don't have that as leverage. The claims are going to be four or five, six million. Every single one of them. And that's a problem.'
The existing caps were set by the Legislature in the early 1970s and last adjusted in 2010.
Florida League of Cities lobbyist David Cruz recommended that the Legislature tie the caps to the consumer price index, which, he said, would yield new limits of $280,000 per individual and $420,000 per occurrence.
The Legislature also could review other states' sovereign immunity laws and adjust Florida's accordingly, he suggested, noting that Texas limits are set at $250,000 per individual and $500,000 per occurrence. Another option, Cruz said, would be to mirror the caps that were proposed in House and Senate legislation last year, which ranged from a low of $300,000 per person to a high of $600,000 per incident.
Cruz stressed, though, that the requirement for a claims bill process should remain intact.
'There is value in going to that special master process,' Cruz said.
Miami attorney Eric Tinstman, a Florida Justice Association member, said the concept of sovereign immunity is 'anti-American.'
'I can think of no more anti-American statement than the king can do no wrong,' he said.
Tinstman defended the portion of the bill that allows a governmental entity to settle a claim without first going through the claims bill process and having a special master reconsider the case and make its own findings and facts, he told the committee.
'A special master is how Europe does it. They don't have juries. They don't have their people, their community, to decide what the damages are, what the liability is. It's all special masters,' he said. 'We like the way our country works. We leave it to our community, juries, and judges who are appointed and elected by the people, not some special master.'
Tinstman views the $1 million and $3 million caps as reasonable. In response to adjusting the sovereign immunity limits by inflation, Tinstman said, the adjustment should be made to the initial $50,000 cap in 1973 not the 2010 cap.
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