Florida’s no-fault automobile insurance requirements could see some changes

By: Jackie Llanos and Christine Sexton – March 3, 2025

The coastline in Steinhatchee remains covered in debris on Oct. 3, 2024, following Hurricane Helene. (Photo by Jay Waagmeester/Florida Phoenix)

Insurance could prove the issue that dominates Florida’s 2025 legislative session, given that lawmakers have filed dozens of bills aimed at reining in homeowners’ insurance premiums and once again hope to repeal the requirement to carry no-fault car insurance policies.

Property taxes

 Sen. Blaise Ingoglia Photo credit: Christine Sexton Florida Phoenix

Positioned as one of the most important lawmakers when it comes to insurance is Spring Hill Republican Sen. Blaise Ingoglia, who chairs the committee dealing with that industry. The Gov. Ron DeSantis ally has multiple proposals tackling home hardening against hurricanes and floods and reversing some of the legislative gains won by insurance companies.

“There are still a bunch of bills that have been filed, so we’re going to be going through the bills diligently,” Ingoglia told Florida Phoenix on Monday. “We want to make sure that any bill that winds up being heard in committee is holding insurance companies accountable, but making sure that we are doing everything that we possibly can to reduce premiums for homeowners.”

His most recently filed bill, SB 1740, would require carriers applying to conduct business in Florida to hold reserves of at least $35 million more than they need to cover obligations to policyholders.

Directors, officers, or attorneys of insurance companies that can’t pay their debts would be barred from joining another insurance company in that capacity if they were in their position within five years before the insurer becomes insolvent.

Under Ingoglia’s proposal, the state’s hurricane mitigation grants of up to $10,000 would go toward improvements that would result in a property insurance credit or discount. Republican newcomer Yvette Benarroch of Marco Island is sponsoring the House companion.

The senator also wants the Legislature to assume authority to freeze property taxes for homeowners who elevate and in other ways make their homes more resistant to winds and flooding. Two-thirds passage of that resolution, SJR 1190, in the Legislature would put that question in front of voters in 2026, and it would require 60% approval at the polls.

If voters want to make that change to the Florida Constitution, another bill, SB 1192, which Ingoglia filed on Feb. 25, would freeze property taxes for 20 years for homeowners who elevate their homes.

Pinellas Republican Reps. Adam Anderson and Kimberly Berfield filed the House companions.

Reports and more reports

Demands for more information and transparency are a common thread among the bills lawmakers have filed on property insurance this session.

During the insurance market upheaval following Hurricanes Irma and Michael, insurers raised premiums to cover their losses while their affiliate companies made billions, according to a recent investigation by the Tampa Bay Times. The affiliate companies increased their profits by overcharging the insurers for basic services.

A 174-page proposal, SB 1656/HB 1429, which Tampa Republican Jay Collins and Miami Lakes Republican Tom Fabricio filed on Friday, requires insurers to turn over to the Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) documentation about fees paid to affiliates. The bill also requires the companies to tell residential property policyholders how the costs of litigation, reinsurance, and affiliate fees influence the rate the customer pays.

Sen. Don Gaetz (Photo/Florida Senate)

Former Senate President Don Gaetz — the Republican is once again representing the far western Panhandle in the upper chamber — is taking a similar approach with SB 554. His proposal, sponsored in the House by fellow Panhandle lawmaker Alex Andrade, requires OIR to create a report detailing the financial relationship between insurers and affiliates with at least 10% common ownership and another delving into insurance executives’ compensation.

Gaetz and Andrade also want to reinstate Florida’s old one-way attorney fees, which traditionally awarded litigation costs to homeowners who successfully sue insurance companies. In 2023, the Legislature required both parties to pay for their own attorneys’ fees, one of DeSantis’ priorities.

Across the aisle, Democrats have filed bills limiting property insurance rate increases and creating a trust fund to help people who can’t pay for their insurance. Meanwhile, Democratic House Leader Fentrice Driskell requested that House Speaker Daniel Perez and DeSantis investigate why the state concealed for two years the information the Tampa Bay Times reported.

PIP tussle

Personal injury protection (PIP) is a type of car insurance that pays for medical expenses, lost wages, and other related costs of drivers and passengers injured in automobile accidents, regardless of which driver causes the accident.

Florida drivers are required to carry a $10,000 in PIP coverage on their insurance policies under Florida’s no-fault automobile insurance system, which also requires drivers to purchase $10,000 in property damage liability insurance. Those are minimum requirements and drivers can purchase additional coverage on top of those mandated requirements.

Map: Jackie Llanos/Florida PhoenixCreated with Datawrapper

The state’s no-fault automobile insurance laws ban injured parties from bringing lawsuits against at-fault parties to recover noneconomic damages, although there are some exceptions (if a person suffers a permanent loss of an important bodily function; a permanent injury; a permanent scar or disfigurement; or death.)

According to the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles just under 6% of the drivers on Florida roads were uninsured as of February.

The Florida Justice Association, which supports a PIP repeal, notes that a Forbes analysis of automobile insurance rates shows that Florida is the most expensive state for car insurance in the nation. To meet the requirements of the law costs an average $1,529 annually.

The Legislature agreed in 2021 to repeal the no-fault system and the minimum mandated coverages and return to a fault-based system, but Gov. DeSantis vetoed the bill (SB 54). In his veto letter, DeSantis stated at the time that although the “PIP system has flaws,” repeal could have unintended consequences for the market and the consumer.

Perez, who was vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee at the time, voted for the repeal at the time.

Fast forward to 2025 and there’s another concerted effort to repeal the PIP system, and Perez is speaker of the House of Representatives. The vehicles are SB 1256 by Sen. Erin Grall and HB 1181 by Rep. Danny Alvarez.

The bills would abolish PIP and instead require drivers to carry $25,000 in bodily injury coverage for one person and $50,000 for two or more people per incident plus $10,000 in property liability coverage.

Florida Justice Reform Institute William Large is lobbying against the repeal. Large, whose group advocates for lawsuit restrictions, says lawmakers should allow the state’s no-fault laws and PIP to remain in place for at least another three years while lawmakers gather market data. He says the pause would allow the state to ascertain whether elimination of one-way attorney’s fees reduced the costs of automobile insurance.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2025/03/03/heres-what-lawmakers-could-change-about-property-insurance-in-the-next-two-months/

If approved, legislation would include hundreds of millions of dollars for property tax, toll, and disaster relief

BY: MICHAEL MOLINE – DECEMBER 12, 2022 7:00 AM

The Florida Capitol, January 2021. Credit: Michael Moline

Insurers and the larger business community would get virtually everything they want under legislation proposed for the Legislature’s special session on that topic and trial attorneys would likely take it on the chin, as lawmakers convene Monday in the Florida Capitol.

That includes repeal of the state’s one-way attorney fee in insurance disputes — perhaps the No. 1 item on the insurance industry’s wish list. The Legislature approved the fee law to even the balance between policyholders and their carriers, but insurers now claim it’s leading to frivolous, but expensive, litigation.

In addition, the Legislature will take up toll relief for commuters and property tax relief for Floridians who suffer significant hurricane damage.

The proposed insurance legislation would authorize $1 billion for a new reinsurance program to back insurance companies, on top of $2 billion authorized in another special session last spring.

But that’s not all when it comes to the hundreds of millions proposed in several pieces of legislation. For example, the toll relief program, if approved, would include $500 million in the 2022-23 budget year. And the disaster relief bill would include everything from $350 million for FEMA public assistance grants to $150 million for affordable housing for hurricane recovery and $100 million for beach erosion projects, according to legislative documents.

As to homeowners, don’t expect lower property insurance premiums soon. In fact, people could be forced out of the Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed insurer of last resort, if a policy is available on the private market for no more than 20 percent above the Citizens premium. They’d be blocked from insuring through Citizens under those same conditions.

‘Difficult but careful balance’

 Naples Republican Kathleen Passidomo answers reporters’ questions following her installment as Florida Senate president on Nov. 22, 2022. Credit: Michael Moline

Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and House Speaker Paul Renner announced that the legislation had been filed on Friday night, “I believe the goal we all share is for Florida to have a robust property insurance market that offers homeowners the opportunity to shop for insurance that meets their needs and budget,” Passidomo said in a written statement. “We also want to make certain that when damage occurs, claims are paid promptly and fairly, so homeowners do not have to contend with time-consuming and expensive litigation,” she added.

“This special session is about providing short and long-term relief to property insurance consumers, extending aid to victims of hurricanes Ian and Nicole, and helping commuters using Florida’s toll roads save money,” Renner said on Twitter.

“Our policymaking strikes a difficult but careful balance that ensures Floridians can access property insurance, targets cost-driving frivolous lawsuit while protecting access to the courts, and sends a strong signal to insurance carriers that Florida is open for business.”

Rampant receivership
Gov. Ron DeSantis pressed for the special session while taking heat from Democratic opponent Charlie Crist during his reelection campaign this year, after an earlier special session on the topic failed to produce immediate relief.

According to the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR), eight insurance companies have entered receivership in Florida since 2019, five of them during 2022 alone.

They’ve been losing a ton of money. According to a legislative analysis, Florida insurers all together ran a $1 billion in the red during 2020 and 2021; the last time they showed a profit was in 2016.

Complicating the picture were hurricanes Ian and Nicole, which struck Florida, respectively, in late September and November. The first caused estimated damage in the range of $40 billion to $64 billion, including uninsured flood losses of $10 billion to $16 billion. Estimated insurance losses from Nicole run to nearly $2 billion.

The result of these trends has been a surge in policies written by Citizens, which reported an increase in policies from 759,305 worth more than $232.5 billion at the end of 2021 to more than 1.1 million policies worth around $399 billion as of Oct. 31 this year.

“If we get to have a stable and competitive market, consumers will benefit, because companies will be competing against each other to take market share. You do that most quickly by being able to lower the price,” said Michael Carlson, president and CEO of the Personal Insurance Federation of Florida, representing companies including State Farm, Progressive, Allstate, and Farmers.

Blame game
One of the main culprits, to the industry and even the OIR, is the plaintiffs’ bar, which they accuse of exploiting legal loopholes to extract money from insurers.

The Florida Justice Association, a lobby for plaintiffs’ attorneys, didn’t respond to an interview request, but in the past has blamed mounting litigation on insurers that don’t pay claims fully or promptly.

But during a speech at the Florida Chamber of Commerce’s annual insurance summit last week, Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis targeted assignment of benefits agreements, in which policyholders transfer their right to sue carriers to a law firm or a contractor. The argument is that these agreements — AOBs in shorthand — encourage unnecessary litigation.

 Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis. Credit: Florida Department of Financial Services

As mentioned above, the legislation would repeal another long-term insurance industry target, that one-way attorney fee laws (here and here). It was designed to discourage insurers from low-balling claims; if a policyholder sues and gets awarded any amount above the offer — even a relatively small amount — he or she could demand the insurer pay his or her litigation costs

Incentives
“It’s created an incentive to bring lawsuits over low-dollar amounts,” William Large, president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, told the Phoenix in a telephone interview.

“So, you see lawsuits where the amount recovered is a low-dollar amount, but it leads to huge fees. If they can collect a penny on a lawsuit, they get their fees paid. And it’s not that difficult to go behind an estimate and get a penny or a dollar more to be paid,” he continued.

 William W. Large, president, Florida Justice Reform Institute. Credit. FJRI website.

That’s especially true following a large storm that causes extensive damage. Competition for contractors and building supplies can delay repairs to individual homes and spin off inflation that drives up repair expanses. Unscrupulous contractors and lawyers can leverage homeowner frustration to take advantage of that, Large said.

“Multiply that fact pattern times 100,000 homes. This is not a tenable business model, and this is what is driving insurers to file for bankruptcy and leave the state of Florida. It’s creating an increase in the number of insured under the state-run property insurance company, Citizens Property Insurance,” he said.

Even if the policyholder is entitled to more money, “it’s not meant to be a lawsuit. But that’s the system that we have in place,” Large argued.

Another law allows courts to order insurers to pay a policyholder’s court fees in any suit filed seeking timely payment of claims, within 60 days. The insurer is entitled to have an appraisal done, but it can be difficult to perform those within the time allotted under some circumstances, Large said. The policyholder is still entitled to recover his or her attorney fees.

Large categorized the dynamic as “rent seeking,” which he defined as “parking yourself on a regulatory mechanism that offers absolutely no value to society, and that’s what the plaintiffs are doing with the one-way attorney fee provision. They’re making money on a provision that was meant to benefit the insured but it’s only benefitting attorneys.”

Again, the Florida Justice Association provided no comment to the Phoenix, but in remarks to the Florida Bar News association president Curry Pajcic complained that insurance companies bring litigation upon themselves through their claims practices.

“The corporate elites and the insurance industry want to take your arm and your leg, and in exchange, give you a crutch,” Pajcic said. “They don’t want to make it right; they don’t want to make it even.”

Bad faith
The legislation attempts to address these complaints. It would become harder to press bad-faith claims against insurance companies accused of low-balling or slow-walking claims. For one thing, a policyholder no longer would automatically have a claim for bad faith if he or she forces the carrier to improve on an initial offer of settlement — instead, the customer would have to establish breach of contract.

And the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation would gain new powers to punish insurers for abusing the appraisal process; they could lose their ability to use for process for two years and get publicly named and shamed on the office’s website. The legislation would tighten timelines for insurers to respond to claims.

What’s getting very little mention is the climate change driving these losses — either by the Republicans driving the legislation or the industry.

“It’s not something we’re actively talking about,” said Carlson, the insurance lobbyist.

“I think some of the national companies have looked at the issue to see what the risk of sea-level rise, for example, is. What the risk of increased storm frequency and severity is driven by warmer temperatures of the planet. But, to my knowledge, the companies have never stepped into the public policy arena with regard to that. I do know that we strongly support any resiliency measures,” he said.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2022/12/12/special-session-opens-monday-on-troubled-property-insurance-market-will-reforms-work-longterm/ 

DeSantis’ bid in special session for OSHA alternative might not work in practice

But Biden’s vaccine mandates for employers faces political, legal tests

BY: MICHAEL MOLINE – NOVEMBER 2, 2021 7:00 AM

Florida’s Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021. Credit: Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ record in office indicates he will pretty much get anything he wants from the Legislature during the impending special session on COVID-19 policy. The fellow Republicans who run the House and Senate have rarely told the governor “No.”

That means DeSantis can look forward to signing into law measures clamping down on local school boards trying to assert their own authority over whether kids need to wear masks; shoring up Florida’s new Parents’ Bill of Rights law to that same effect; and protecting workers against what he is calling “unfair discrimination on the basis of COVID-19 vaccination status.”

 Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference in Lakeland on Oct. 28, 2021, as Attorney General Ashley Moody looks on. Source: Screenshot/DeSantis Facebook page

Although the governor has railed against the chance that workers, especially in public safety, might be fired for refusing vaccines, his formal call for the special session is more specific about the rights of those who do lose jobs, directing the Legislature to ensure that they will be “eligible for reemployment benefits and, if needed, ensure that employees injured by a COVID-19 vaccination taken pursuant to a company policy are covered by workers’ compensation.”

Less clear is whether the Legislature will set up a state-run agency to supersede the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor that sets standard for safe and healthful workplaces, or what a state version would do exactly and how.

What top Republicans do say is that the idea is to free employers of an impending Biden administration order that companies with more than 100 employees much ensure they are vaccinated or, as an alternative, submit to weekly coronavirus testing.

Timothy Loftus, of the Center for Ethics and Public Service at the University of Miami School of Law, dismissed the OSHA alternative idea, which originated with House Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson, as “crazy talk” — at least regarding any hope of overruling federal regulators.

“We don’t pass federal laws and then invite people to participate,” Loftus said in a telephone interview.

Business qualms
Business organizations have been muted on the overall session agenda, including bans on vaccine mandates. In a written statement on Monday, the Florida Chamber of Commerce seemed intent on leaving as little daylight between itself and the governor as possible.

“Like Gov. DeSantis, we remain frustrated by the federal government’s decision to dictate a decision best left up to the free market. In a free market society, consumers, employees and employers are in the best position to make these choices for themselves without any government intervention,” Chamber President and CEO Mark Wilson said.

“As with any legislation, we look forward to reviewing the details with our members and ensuring any final bill helps Florida compete and aligns with our mission to continue doing what job creators do best — create jobs in Florida,” he said.

Loftus, of the U.M. law school, argued that corporations, otherwise natural DeSantis allies, welcome what the governor calls federal overreach. “It’s less people getting sick; it means they can work more fluidly and COVID becomes less of an issue,” he said.

“If you’re a CEO, you’re happy. You get what you want to run your company. You lay the blame on the Biden administration. You tell DeSantis, ‘Sorry, I’m listening to the federal government; I don’t have to listen to you, I don’t have to listen to Greg Abbott in Texas,’ and you get a pass.”

“I think it’s anti-business. I think that, should the governor’s proposals ultimately pass, it’s going to make it less safe for Floridians and could potentially contribute to another surge — which is exactly what Florida’s economy does not need,” Fentrice Driskell of Hillsborough County, policy chief for Democrats in the state House, said of the DeSantis agenda.

“It seems that this governor is so bent on fighting President Biden rather than fighting the virus,” she said.

Driskell added: “The thought of Florida leaving OSHA is preposterous, it’s ridiculous, it’s expensive, it’s going to cost millions of dollars and take years.”

The OSHA talk thus far has been too vague, the AFL-CIO’s Templin said. The governor said only that the Legislature should “evaluate whether it should assert jurisdiction over occupational safety and health issues for government and private employees.”

“Are we going to try to do this in four days? Are we going to set up an independent commission to look at this over the next many months? Are we going to have hearings with worker-safety experts, unions, corporations? Is everybody going to be invited to the table? We still just don’t know.

“That all speaks to a political gesture, as opposed to a real policy endeavor,” Templin said.

 William W. Large, president, Florida Justice Reform Institute. Credit. FJRI website.

Even William Large, the conservative president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, was skeptical.

“The proposal to withdraw from OSHA is short-sighted and will not result in immediately avoiding any OSHA-imposed vaccine mandate, as any state-led occupational health and safety plan will have to meet federal approval and it will also necessitate a substantial expansion of Florida government to handle the workplace health and safety issues currently handled by OSHA,” Large said vie email.

‘All one team’
DeSantis had been foreshadowing a special session and finally issued his call on Friday, ordering the Legislature to convene from Nov. 15 through no later than Nov. 19, when lawmakers already were set to be in Tallahassee for committee meetings in advance of the regular session, due to kick off on Jan. 11.

“Your right to earn a living should not be contingent upon COVID shots,” DeSantis said in a written statement on Friday. He and Attorney General Ashley Moody, a fellow Republican, had already filed a lawsuit challenging a Biden vax mandate for federal contractors. Another Biden rule would deny Medicaid and Medicare money for health providers who don’t require vaccines of employees.

“Of course, writing the actual legislation to protect Floridians will be up to state lawmakers,” press secretary Christina Pushaw said in a written statement on Monday.

“We are confident that House and Senate leadership share the governor’s goals for the session: protecting Floridians’ jobs and constitutional rights. We look forward to seeing the legislation they propose to achieve this shared objective, and we’re eager to work with lawmakers to ensure that ‘two weeks to slow the spread’ does not become ‘three jabs to keep your job,’” Pushaw said.

“Under the leadership of Gov. DeSantis and the Florida Legislature, Florida has been a beacon of hope, and we intend to keep it that way. We look forward to working with Gov. DeSantis and our colleagues to craft, debate, and pass thoughtful legislation that keeps Florida open for business and prioritizes people, parents and businesses over government,” Sprowls and Simpson said in a joint written statement on Friday.

“During the special session, we will do everything within our power as a state to protect Floridians from the unconstitutional, un-American, and morally reprehensible overreaches on the part of the federal government,” they said.

“We’re all one team. We show how conservative governance is done, between the speaker, the governor, and the president of the Senate,” Republican State Rep. Randy Fine, who represents part of Brevard County, said in a telephone interview.

Fine wouldn’t endorse any legislation before he reads a draft but said: “I think if the governor and the leadership agree on something it’s highly likely that the majority in both chambers will support it.”

Elsewhere, the Iowa Legislature has approved legislation to block a Biden mandate and a special session along the same lines is planned in Idaho.

Florida would be absolutely within its authority if it set up its own version of OSHA — federal law explicitly allows it, and 22 states have created such agencies, by OSHA’s own tally, covering state and local workers and in some cases private employees.

A state agency might not be free to countermand federal regulations, however. An OSHA fact sheet makes clear: “State plans are monitored by OSHA and must be at least as effective as OSHA in protecting workers and in preventing work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths.”

“You run into the ultimate issue that the federal government has the financial hammer. ‘If you’re going to pull out of OSHA or try to challenge us, then we’re going to revoke your funding for this, that, and the other thing,’” Loftus said.

Fine, the Brevard Republican, is all for a state agency.

“I think it’s a great idea. I fully support it. We should drop out of all these federal entities that have been weaponized against states. I think if we could drop out of the FBI I’d probably support that at this point,” he said.

“Anything we can do to protect Florida businesses from a tyrannical federal government, we should be doing.”

OSHA’s authority?
The basic dispute here is between the DeSantis and Biden administrations over the president’s vaccine/testing mandate for employers. Although the courts ultimately will settle that fight, it nevertheless will underlie the special session.

Loftus, for one, is less certain about Biden’s mandate, which as of Monday was still awaiting final approval. He noted that OSHA in promulgating the mandate cites its emergency authority to protect workers against any “grave danger,” according to a Bloomberg News analysis, published on Oct. 22, by James Sullivan of Cozen O’Connor’s OSHA practice.

OSHA argues COVID presents just as real a danger as, say, mishandling volatile chemicals. But it reached that conclusion only after vaccine rates declined nationally — as recently as June, the agency extended that concern only to health care workers, Sullivan wrote.

“What has changed since the pandemic emerged in the U.S. in early 2020 to conclude that now, for the first time, this new vaccination [emergency temporary standard] is necessary to protect all workers from this virus when it was not necessary three to four months ago?” Sullivan wondered.

Additionally: “Who are the millions of workers currently working for employers with less than 100 employees not also presented with this ‘grave danger’ and in need of protection?”

OSHA has defended the authority it cites now six times against federal lawsuits, Sullivan wrote. It won a single case.

DeSantis himself issued a warning to the business community during the Chamber’s annual conference last week.

“Don’t ever think that caving to the mob is going to save your bacon. That’s just going to cause them to come back more,” he said, according to a report by the Miami Herald-Tampa Bay Times capital bureau.

“You know, if you do it, you are also going to come by some people on the other side, like me, who are going to say well, wait a minute, if you’re going to criticize what we’re doing I may criticize some of the things you are doing,’’ he added.

“I may look under the hood and not like some things,’’ he warned. “I got a podium. I got cameras that will follow me around. Maybe I’ll go talk about that a little bit. And so, I think it’s something that’s very damaging.”

https://floridaphoenix.com/2021/11/02/desantis-bid-in-special-session-for-osha-alternative-might-not-work-in-practice/ 

FL Legislature 2021: FL’s business lobby and state’s trial lawyers clash: GOP wants to protect businesses from COVID lawsuits and possibly more

By Michael Moline – February 15, 2021

 Florida’s Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021. Credit: Michael Moline/Florida Phoenix

Barbara DeVane, lobbyist since 1972 for progressive causes in Tallahassee, offered some historical perspective last week to several senators considering whether to shield medical institutions, including hospitals and nursing homes, from liability from COVID lawsuits.

The Senate’s Judiciary Committee was debating a bill by its own chairman — Pinellas Republican Jeff Brandes — and voting down a series of Democratic amendments to weaken the bill.

To DeVane, representing Florida NOW and the Florida Alliance of Retired Americans, this was just another chapter in a decades-long campaign to restrict access to the courtroom.

“The tort reformers come and go, about every 20 years,” she testified.

“And here we go again. The only people that this bill will protect are the owners, the corporate owners, of nursing homes. They make a lot of money off of us who are residents in nursing homes, and they want to make more with bills like this.”

Brandes, though, pushing for protecting businesses, including the health care industry, from COVID lawsuits, reminded committee members of the confusion during the pandemic’s early days, when nobody understood how to guard against infection.

 FL Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg. Credit: Colin Hackley

“We are asking in this piece of legislation that we protect our health-care industry that has gone over and above the call of duty in order to protect and serve every resident of the state who needed help.”

That’s how the sides line up in a sharp debate over COVID liability protection and who will benefit most. Florida’s businesses, lawyers, and lobbyists? What about ordinary people who got infected on the job or in a health care facility?

House and Senate leaders, with backing from Gov. Ron DeSantis, are fast-tracking separate bills erecting barriers to lawsuits for people suing general businesses and medical providers for exposing them to the coronavirus.

Long struggle

It’s the latest battle in a decades-long war over tort reform between the cream of Florida’s business lobby and the state’s trial lawyers in the form of the Florida Justice Association — the latter allied with groups dedicated to looking out for the little guy, including DeVane’s groups and the AFL-CIO.

Torts are wrongful acts amenable to compensation through the civil trial system: People who’ve suffered harm — or plaintiffs — hire attorneys to press their claims in court, generally paying a share of whatever they recover through trials or settlements.

Tort reformers want to make it harder for them to do that by erecting barriers to the courthouse, they contend on the ground that the process is subject to abuse that can harm small businesses and enrich unscrupulous lawyers.

Business interests have been grinding away at tort reform for decades in areas including workers’ compensation insurance, personal injury protection (PIP) auto coverage, property insurance, and more. (Here’s a rundown by the Florida Justice Reform Institute, a tort reform group.)

Democratic state Sen. Tina Polsky, a mediation attorney who represents Palm Beach County and part of Broward, like DeVane, sees the push for COVID liability shields as one more whack at the tort system.

 State Sen. Tina Polsky, a Democrat representing part of Palm Beach County. Credit: Florida House of Representatives.

“I think it is part of the process of eventually getting to tort reform. It’s unique circumstances — if we didn’t have the COVID pandemic these particular bills wouldn’t be here,” Polsky told the Phoenix following the committee hearing.

But to House and Senate leaders, tort reform “is a priority, and they are looking for ways to get there. This is one of the vehicles,” she said.

The Florida Phoenix reported here about the details of the legislation targeting lawsuits against businesses, which also would apply to actions against individuals, charitable organizations, nonprofits, public or private educational institutions, government entities, and religious institutions.

The News Service of Florida provided a good explainer on the medical angle here. The bill would cover individual practitioners including doctors and nurses, plus hospitals, nursing homes, and other medical facilities. Nursing homes and assisted living facilities alone have seen 9,710 resident and 93 staff deaths, plus 231 deaths under investigation, according to the latest Florida Department of Health data.

The gist of the legislation is that businesses and health care providers can knock out lawsuits early if they followed the best available medical advice and government guidelines.

The House and Senate bills contain most of the asks sought by a Reset Liability Task Force organized by the most ardent tort reformers in Florida, including the justice reform institute, Associated Industries of Florida, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Florida Retail Federation, the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, the Florida Hospital Association, and the Florida Senior Living Association, plus insurance industry groups — 60 organizations in all.

The groups are in line to win one goal, the task force report says — “exempting essential businesses entirely from COVID-19 liability.”

“Blanket immunity” for “bad actors”

To critics, including Stephen Cain, a Miami trial attorney and an officer with the Florida Justice Association, the legislation would reward “bad actors” with “blanket immunity” by making it all but impossible to go to court, as he testified from an earlier legislative committee meeting.

Cain represents the family of Gerardo “Gerry” Gutierrez, who’s suing Publix on allegations that he caught COVID and died after the company refused to let workers wear face masks on the job, according his law firm.

“Floridians are being misled on purpose about the dangers this legislation represents for people working on the frontlines in our airports, retail stores, delivering packages, and so many other places,” said Mark Ferrulo, executive director of Progress Florida, in a written statement.

“This is another case of profits over people and bowing to special interests instead of serving the public interest. Legislators supporting this sham should be ashamed.”

It’s not clear how many lawsuits we’re taking about.

  William W. Large, president, Florida Justice Reform Institute. Credit. FJRI website.

William Large, president of the justice reform institute, has identified 49 COVID-related lawsuits filed in Florida and acknowledges he has missed some. Nine of them target operators of cruise ships, alleging failure to protect passengers or crew members against the coronavirus.

Eight are pending in federal court, and so would be outside the reach of the legislation. The ninth cruise claim is pending in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court.

Another nine cases raise claims against nursing homes in state trial courts, although three of these have been removed to U.S. district courts. Twenty-two accuse the Duval County Sheriff’s Department of exposing inmates to the virus. Other accuse employers and business owners of failure to take care against exposing workers and customers.

“There is a wave of litigation coming,” Large said during testimony before Brandes’ committee last week.

Robin Khanal, an Orlando lawyer who defends nursing homes and assisted living facilities in liability cases, testified that his firm alone is working on 60 claims against clients.

Meanwhile, the American Tort Reform Association issued a report identifying more than $6.6 million in attorney advertisements in Florida seeking COVID-related work. Additionally, the nonpartisan Florida TaxWatch has estimated COVID-related litigation could cost the state’s economy $27.6 billion and as much as 356 jobs per year.

Critics contend these fears are overblown.

“There aren’t a flood of lawsuits, particularly with the business liability,” Polsky told the Phoenix.

“Let’s be realistic: Lawyers take these cases on contingency. They’re not going to get paid if they lose the case. They’re going to have to put up a lot of money — especially in these medical-type cases. You need experts. That costs a lot of money.”

“Judicial hell hole”

Brandes takes a dimmer view of the trial bar.

“Florida is considered a judicial hell hole. The two things that we know when we look up in Florida is you’re going to see the sun and a trial lawyer’s face on a billboard,” he told the Phoenix in a telephone interview.

“What we’re trying to do is sift out the legitimate claims where people were truly grossly negligent, If they knowingly told people who had active COVID to come back to work, clearly that would be considered grossly negligent.”

These bills represent the vanguard of tort reform efforts in the Legislature this year. PIP reform is back, via SB 54, which would replace a liability system business considers rife with fraud with more straightforward bodily injury coverage. That bill also would make it harder for plaintiffs to claim bad faith by insurance companies if they delay payouts.

HB 561 and the companion SB 846 would make it harder for lawyers to send injured clients to hand-picked doctors who might run up medical costs to inflate payouts.

“Florida businesses and health care providers are very concerned about lawsuits. I think their voices have been heard by leaders of the House and Senate on those subjects,” Large said.

Notably, Republican attorney Anitere Flores has termed out of the Senate, which in recent years has been more skeptical than the House of tort reform. As chair of the Banking & Insurance Committee, she rode herd on the reformers for the past two years. Her replacement in that seat is fellow Republican Jim Boyd of Bradenton, who lists his employment as insurance and investments.

Polsky finds the situation worrisome.

“If they are successful with this [COVID liability limits], then — not that there’ll be another pandemic — but why not keep going? It’s what we have with a woman’s right to choose — a chipping away.”

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2021/02/15/fl-legislature-2021-fls-business-lobby-and-states-trial-lawyers-clash-gop-wants-to-protect-businesses-from-covid-lawsuits-and-possibly-more/ 

FL Democrats confront a hard truth: ‘We need a whole new direction’

By Michael Moline – November 4, 2020

 Photo by CD Davidson-Hiers/Florida Phoenix

Florida Democrats on Wednesday were absorbing a stunning rebuke: President Donald Trump carried Florida with 51.24 percent of the vote to Biden’s 47.85 percent, a difference of nearly 400,000 votes out of 11 million cast, according to unofficial Florida Division of Elections data.

Trump claimed Florida’s 29 electoral votes. Moreover, his party added five seats to its majority in the Florida House of Representatives and may have expanded its 23-17 majority in the state Senate. Republican Ileana Garcia holds a 21-vote lead over Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez in Senate District 37 in Miami-Dade County, which will force a recount.

Meanwhile, South Florida Democrats Donna Shalala and Debby Murcarsel-Powell lost their seats in Congress.

How the Democrats stumbled so badly is still not known.

 Rep. Evan Jenne. Credit: Florida House

But State Rep. Evan Jenne of Broward County, policy chairman for the House Democratic caucus, had this to say:

“There needs to be a major, major deep dive and autopsy — whatever term you want to put on it,” Jenne said. “Not just on what the party did but how the party is structured and what that’s going to look like going forward. Because, quite clearly, what we’re doing now ain’t working.”

Democrat Javier Fernandez, who lost Senate District 39 to Republican Ana Maria Rodriguez, on Twitter lamented his party’s “total systemic failure.”

He blamed “party, caucuses, affiliated & independent groups. People have spoken & clearly said they don’t want what we are offering. Unforgivable part is that no one saw this coming. We got beat & bad. We need to own it so we can move on & rebuild.”

Democrats are likely deciphering some of things that went wrong.

Unreturned ballots

They beat Republicans in the early vote-by-mail and in-person turnout — 3.58 million to 3.46 million, with more than 1 million no-party-affiliation early votes (not counting votes for other parties).

But they left nearly 500,000 mail-in ballots unreturned to elections supervisors, compared to nearly 370,000 for the Republicans. Those unspent Democratic ballots could have made the difference for Biden.

Florida Democratic Party chairwoman Terrie Rizzo issued the following statement:

“I would like to thank all of our down ballot Democrats, our party leaders, our staff and our volunteers who gave their blood, sweat, and tears to help Democrats win. While we are confident In the ultimate victory of Joe Biden, I know our Florida losses sting deep, for our party, the candidates, and the 5 million Florida Democrats looking to build on the progress we have made. Together with our state and national partners, we need to do a deep dive to address data and turnout issues that caused these losses, and where our party goes from here.”

Florida House Victory, the state House caucus’ campaign arm, issued this statement:

“We’re obviously disappointed with the results in statehouse races, but they track what happened here in the state Senate, congressional, and the presidential races. It appears people voted Republican at the top of the ticket on down and some of our outstanding candidates lost as a result. Floridians are obviously very divided on the vision for the state and the country. We will continue to fight to enact policies that help everyday Floridians.”

Recriminations began almost immediately. House Democrat Anna Eskamani, who cruised to a second term in her Orlando-based District 45, was perhaps the first to speak out Tuesday evening.

“I’m saying it now. We need a whole new direction for the @FlaDems. We are losing too many incredible down-ballot elected officials and candidates right now and it’s not ok. I know we have the potential to be better and do better,” she said on Twitter.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani. Credit: Colin Hackley

Eskamani cited failure by many Democrats to campaign around Amendment 2, the minimum wage hike that looked likely to have cleared the 60 percent voter approval threshold. Republican leaders including DeSantis campaigned ardently against the proposal.

“Democratic Party is scared to stand with working people because then the corporations that fund @FlaDems and so many candidates will get mad and stop throwing crumbs at us while they throw a LOT more at Republican Party and caucuses. We lose, the people lose — corporations win,” she tweeted Wednesday.

Early votes, Cuba and Venezuela

William Large, president of the conservative Florida Justice Reform Institute, had called the outcome days before the election in an interview with the Phoenix, citing Democrats’ failure to return enough early votes to counteract what seemed like a strong Trump vote on election day.

To Large, many pre-election forecasts overlooked the saliency of Trump’s policy toward Cuba and Venezuela.

President Obama had moved toward rapproachement with Cuba but Trump reversed course, and he and other Republicans took a hard line toward Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“I think he solidified the entire Cuban-American vote behind the Republican banner,” Large said. Venezuelan-Americans, too, “have become loyal Republican voters.”

Additionally, voters in the Panhandle demonstrated “robust loyalty and support for Trump,” he said.

Biden won Miami-Dade with 617,201 votes against 532,409 for Trump. But the president had boosted his 2016 result by a reported 9 percent in a county where Hispanics comprise a quarter of the electorate. Biden’s win wasn’t big enough to offset the GOP vote elsewhere.

Still, the “Cuban voters” angle on Trump’s victory in Florida does not capture the whole picture, said Abel Iraola, press secretary for NextGen Florida, founded by former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer.

“I think that what’s lost there is that the second- and third-generation Cuban Americans — those of us whose parents came here or grandparents came here — are much more likely to be Democrat and vote for Biden,” he said.

“The generational part — you have to look at it as people who have spent all their lives here and people who are coming and adopting this Republican identity,” Iraola said.

A study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University suggests that had the election been put solely to voters between the ages of 18 and 29, Biden would have won Florida with 64 percent of the votes.

Democrats fell to a three-pronged attack, in Jenne’s view: “All Democrats are socialists and they want to defund the police and they took PPE money that should have gone to help everyday Floridians. Those were all things that resonated very deeply with people,” he said.

That last item involved the state party’s acceptance of COVID-related emergency aid that proved embarrassing when disclosed to the public. The party later returned at least $780,000, according to published reports.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ view

Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed reporters about the 2020 election returns on Nov. 4, 2020. Source: Screenshot

Gov. Ron DeSantis — easily the president’s biggest booster around here — called Trump’s victory “significant.” Even “historic.”

“I think his barnstorming — the extent to which this campaigning matters I don’t know. But I think in his case, doing these big events, the electricity it generated when we were in Miami-Dade right on the eve of the election, it was a really incredible thing to do,” the governor told reporters.

He referred to rallies Trump and his family members and Vice President Mike Pence staged in Florida, generally in defiance of social distancing and face-mask guidance, and often accompanied by the governor.

“You have to admit that Donald Trump is very popular in the state of Florida — or more popular than I think Democrats are willing to admit,” said Jenne, policy chairman for the House Democratic caucus.

To DeSantis, it also helped that Trump helped Florida with money for pressing needs including Everglades restoration, hurricane relief, and space infrastructure. “You name it, the president’s been there,” he said.

The governor said Florida’s conduct of the election should serve as an example to other states.

“Perhaps 2020 was the year that we finally vanquished the ghost of Bush v. Gore,” he said.

“If the third most populous state in the country can count 11 million votes, produce a result across the board, why can’t some of these other states that are much smaller?”

Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, agreed with Gov. DeSantis that the election ran smoothly.

Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida. Credit: www.lwvfl.org

“Florida turned out a historic number of voters — and no matter what the outcome, we can be proud that so many Florida voters voted,” she said.

DeSantis was “really disappointed” in the way news broadcasters called races in various states. He said Florida could have been called by 8:30 p.m., once the early vote came in from Miami-Dade. “There was a real resistance to just recognize reality.”

DeSantis also savaged the polling industry, which he said “has not got elections right since 2012” and “just couldn’t have missed this one, I think, any worse if you look at some of the things that were circulating over these last many weeks and months.”

He declared: “If you’re that bad at your job, maybe some of these prognosticators should find another line of work. Because I can’t think of another line of work where you can be wrong so many times and then still be there to be able to offer analysis going forward.”

DeSantis took no questions but said: “I’ll be back to take questions probably some time before the weekend.”

Phoenix reporter Danielle J. Brown contributed to this story.

https://www.floridaphoenix.com/2020/11/04/fl-democrats-confront-a-hard-truth-we-need-a-whole-new-direction/