Georgia tort reform aims to change practices in judicial 'hell hole'
With tort reform in Georgia in the books, the celebration cry among Georgia defense attorneys now might be 'we're number three!'
That ranking of the Peach State was jokingly referred to by attorney Blair Cash of the Moseley Marciniak Law Firm, a South Carolina-based practice that focuses much of its work on defending trucking companies.
Cash, who is based in Georgia, made the comment in a webinar Friday to review a package of tort reforms approved by the Georgia legislature earlier this year and signed in late April by Gov. Brian Kemp.
While Cash was enthusiastic about the Georgia tort reform on the webinar, he was careful not to promise too much out of it. 'I really think it is an attempt to just level the playing field a bit, because as has been talked about, Georgia was the number one judicial hell hold for a couple of years,' he said. 'I think now we've fallen back to number three.'
The tort reform is not trucking-specific. Rather, it is an attempt to reform certain practices that have been allowed to develop over the years in the state's courts and which the Georgia trucking bar saw as being risks to the state's motor carriers.
The key legislation is known as SB 85, from Senate Bill 85. But SB 85 had a companion piece of legislation that also was approved and signed by Gov. Kemp, SB 86, which seeks to bring transparency to privately-funded lawsuits, where a plaintiff that lacks the resources to pursue litigation takes funding from an outside source that would then get a piece of whatever settlement or award was reached in the case.
According to both Cash and several law firms that have posted online commentary, SB 85 has numerous provisions, some of which are more procedural to an outsider looking in–like the discovery process being halted while a defendant's request for a dismissal is pending–and others that can more easily be understood by the side of the legal divide that has people behind the wheel and who would be the target of a lawsuit.
The end of the 'seat belt gag rule' is one of those provisions.
'In previous years in Georgia, they've all failed to change the state's draconian seat belt admissibility rule,' Cash said. That draconian rule boiled down to this: 'seat belt usage had been not admissible at all,' he said.
Cash cited an actual case where a person sitting on a seated lawn mower riding in the back of a truck–so not belted in–suffered 'horrible' injuries when the truck experienced a tire blowout. The man was left a quadriplegic, Cash said. But his lack of seat belt usage was not admissible in the resulting litigation.
He said now being able to introduce the seat belt situation of a person injured in an accident may be permissible under the new law. But Cash added that it is not automatic.
It may be preferable, Cash said, not to introduce evidence of seat belt non-usage if the crash in question is a rear end accident resulting in impact 'so insignificant that it doesn't even engage the seat belt.' It can come more into play in crashes where the issue is 'injury causation and what the plaintiffs' injuries would have been had they been wearing their seat belt,' Cash said.
The part of SB 86 that Cash said would be 'the most interesting to see' is the rule on so-called phantom damages.
As the Kennedys law firm said in an online commentary about SB86, the phantom damages provision of SB 86 'allows defendants to present evidence of the actual amounts paid by health insurers for medical care, limiting reliance on inflated billed amounts. Medical expense recovery is now capped at the reasonable value of necessary care, which may be demonstrated through both billed charges and actual payments, regardless of insurance involvement.'
Under the current system that would be changed, the impact of insurance reimbursement against a doctor's charges could not be introduced.
But with the shift, Cash said, juries will 'get to hear both numbers now, so they get to hear the big number (offered by plaintiffs) but they still hear the number of what is actually necessary to satisfy those charges,' Cash said.
He added that he preferred the term 'truth and damages' rather than 'phantom damages.'
One unintended consequence of the law, Cash said, is that it may be preferable from a trial lawyer's perspective if a client has no health insurance. The offsetting impact of insurance payment by definition couldn't come in to play. Cash added that SB 86 is silent on handling that situation.
Other parts of SB86 discussed by Cash and by attorneys in their online commentaries include these provisions:
The 'anchoring' of non-economic damages: Cash cited where an attorney might make an argument along the lines of 'if LeBron James makes this much money, is the client's suffering worth less than that?' As Kennedys said in its commentary, 'this tactic can introduce arbitrary inflated figures that influence juries and contribute to nuclear verdicts.' Under the new law, if that sort of figure isn't discussed earlier in the testimony, it can't suddenly be introduced during a closing argument.
Non-bifurcated trial:The current system could involve three steps, Cash said: the actual trial, apportionment of the damages, and then deciding what the damages should be. Each step could involve the same testimony heard multiple times. Bifurcation, according to the Kennedys law firm, would involve just two phases. But it is not mandated; it is an option that can be requested by either party.
The companion legislation, SB87, does not make illegal the practice of outsiders funding lawsuits.
The law goes into effect January 1, which Cash said would give those funding entities time to comply with what he said were 'onerous:' registration requirements.
'It has the goal of increasing transparency around third party litigation financing and trying to lift back the veil over some of these agreements which we've known existed for a long time,' Cash said. Some judges in the past would require such disclosure, he added, but it was not unanimous.
The registration rules are 'not simply a rubber stamp,' Cash said. 'There are some very serious registration requirements that they have to complete.'
More articles by John Kingston
California deal with 16 states would end key parts of Advanced Clean Fleets rule
New Jersey, feds take opposite paths on independent contractor rules
State of Freight takeaways: Freight crash may turn into sudden revival
The post Georgia tort reform aims to change practices in judicial 'hell hole' appeared first on FreightWaves.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Boss of London ad champion quits after losing crown to French rival
The boss of WPP is to step down months after the British advertising behemoth lost its crown to a French rival. Mark Read will leave after more than three decades at WPP, including seven years as chief executive. He will continue in the role until the end of the year while the board searches for his successor. Mr Read's departure, though long-expected in the industry, comes at a turbulent time for WPP. The London-based group, which employs around 110,000 people worldwide, last year lost its title as the world's largest ad company by revenues to French rival Publicis. Meanwhile, its two other largest rivals – Omnicom and Interpublic – have agreed to merge in a $30bn (£22bn) deal that will further erode WPP's dominance. The British company is also grappling with industry-wide turmoil sparked by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which threatens to upend the work of ad agencies. This has compounded the challenge posed by tech giant such as Google and Meta, which have grown their share of the advertising market in a direct threat to traditional holding groups. Mr Read's tenure has been dominated by efforts to simplify WPP, which had ballooned into a sprawling network of companies under his predecessor Sir Martin Sorrell, who left the company he founded following allegations of misconduct, which he has always denied. As chief executive, Mr Read oversaw the merging of a number of agencies while selling off some non-core businesses, including the £2.5bn sale of a 60pc stake in market research group Kantar. More recently, the ad boss has also vowed to invest heavily in AI, pumping £300m into the technology this year and investing in generative AI startup Stability AI. However, WPP's growth has ground to a halt in recent years and the company's share price has more than halved during Mr Read's tenure, pushing its market value below £6bn. Shares fell a further 2pc after his departure was announced. Alex DeGroote, a media analyst, said: 'The company is much simpler today than it was when he came on board as chief executive.' But he added: 'There's just a feeling of the company having lost a lot of ground to the likes of Publicis, so I can't honestly say that he will be remembered as having delivered immense shareholder value.' Mr Read's future has been in doubt since Philip Jansen, the former BT boss, was appointed as WPP chairman at the beginning of the year. Mr Jansen said Mr Read had 'played a central role in transforming the company into a world leader in modern marketing services'. Mr Read said: 'After seven years in the role, and with the foundations in place for WPP's continued success, I feel it is the right time to hand over the leadership of this amazing company. 'I am excited to explore the next chapter in my life and can only thank all the brilliant people I have been lucky enough to work with over the last 30 years, and who have made possible the enormous progress we have achieved together.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data


Chicago Tribune
35 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren pays nearly $2.3M for Lake Forest mansion
In a move sure to lend further credence to the view that the Chicago Bears will build a new stadium in Arlington Heights, Kevin Warren, the team's president and CEO, in May paid $2.25 million for a five-bedroom, 8,725-square-foot shingle-style mansion in Lake Forest. Warren, 61, became the Bears' president and CEO in January 2023 after serving for more than three years as the commissioner of the Rosemont-based Big Ten conference. During his time overseeing the Big Ten, Warren first rented a 21st-floor condo in a building on Lake Shore Drive in Streeterville, and then in 2023, he and his wife, Greta, paid $1.75 million for a three-bedroom, 2,547-square-foot condominium on the 13th floor of the same high-rise. Since June 2021, the Bears have been known to be considering locations for a new stadium, including building a new arena in Arlington Heights on the 326-acre site of the former Arlington Park racetrack — land that the team purchased in 2023. Warren soon emerged as an enthusiastic proponent of the idea of a new stadium on Chicago's lakefront. In April, Warren told reporters that the team had shifted from solely pursuing building a new stadium downtown to considering both downtown and Arlington Heights. 'The focus now is both downtown and Arlington Heights,' Warren said in April. 'One thing I have said before is that these are not linear processes or projects. They take time.' Then, in May, the Tribune broke the news that the team's focus had moved once again, this time to Arlington Heights exclusively. Warren's decision to buy a suburban home is sure to spark speculation that the team now is near-certain to build in Arlington Heights, although Warren's new house also is close to the Bears' Halas Hall headquarters and training complex in Lake Forest. The house Warren purchased has a wraparound deck, a new cedar shake roof, a great room with a 19-foot alder wood ceiling and a Lannon stone fireplace, and a kitchen with high-end appliances, a center island and a breakfast bar. Other features include a private office with a fireplace and and a first-floor primary bedroom suite with a bathroom that has dual vanities and heated stone floors. Downstairs, the lower level has a family room opening to a stone patio, a guest bedroom suite and an exercise room. With Warren now having purchased a place in the northern suburbs, he joins several of his colleagues, including Bears general manager Ryan Poles, who paid $2.077 million in 2023 for a 5,200-square-foot house in Lincolnshire. Recently hired head coach Ben Johnson is not known to have bought a house here yet. The sellers lost money on the Lake Forest mansion. They paid $2.39 million for it in 2015, and they first listed it in 2023 for $2.495 million. They cut their asking price in April 2024 to $2.4 million, and they signed a deal in April with Warren, who closed on the purchase in May through an opaque land trust that masks his identity. The mansion had a $35,839 property tax bill in the 2024 tax year. It also has $295-a-month homeowners association dues. Real estate agent Annie Royster Lenzke, who represented Warren in his purchase, did not respond to a request for comment. Her colleague Dawn McKenna also did not respond to a request for comment.


Business Journals
36 minutes ago
- Business Journals
Otto Aviation incentives approved at Jacksonville City Council
The Jacksonville City Council approved a Revenue Enhancement Value grant for up to $20 million to support the Texas-based company's planned manufacturing and production facility at Cecil Airport.