Clay Yarborough speaks while a member of the Florida House of Representatives. | Florida House

By Jim Saunders – News Service of Florida
Published on March 18, 2025 at 4:07 pm

On one side are people telling heart-wrenching stories about the deaths of their adult children or parents. On the other are people warning about shortages of doctors and soaring medical malpractice insurance costs.

The two sides are colliding in the Florida Legislature, where a Senate committee Tuesday approved a bill that would change a decades-old law and clear the way for more malpractice lawsuits over patient deaths.

“The bill is about accountability, the value of life and ensuring our laws are just,” bill sponsor Clay Yarborough, R-Jacksonville, said moments before the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Committee voted 8-2 to approve the measure (SB 734).

But Sen. Gayle Harrell, a Stuart Republican who joined Sen. Colleen Burton, R-Lakeland, in voting against the bill, said “there are other ways to solve this problem without creating more problems in the system.” She and other opponents contend that high insurance costs drive doctors away from the state.

“We are desperately in need of physicians,” Harrell said. “If this bill passes, we are going to have an increase in medical malpractice (insurance rates). We are already the highest in the country, and it will continue.”

Proposals to change the 1990 law have surfaced periodically, but they could have more momentum this year. Yarborough’s bill has been approved by two committees, while a House version (HB 6017) has cleared one panel.

The bills involve wrongful death lawsuits and what are known as “noneconomic” damages for such things as pain and suffering.

They would undo part of the 1990 law that prevents people from seeking noneconomic damages in certain circumstances. People who are 25 years old or older cannot seek such damages in medical malpractice cases involving deaths of their parents. Also, parents cannot seek such damages in malpractice cases involving the deaths of their children who are 25 or older.

Numerous speakers have appeared at the Senate and House meetings to tell stories about how their parents or adult children died after medical malpractice — and an inability to pursue damages in the deaths.

Karen Aguilar said Tuesday that her 87-year-old father died in January because of alleged negligence at a Pasco County hospital.

“Some argue that financial compensation cannot replace a loved one, and you’re correct,” Aguilar told senators. “But wrongful death lawsuits are not about putting a price on a life. They are about ensuring accountability, deterring negligence and getting families a pathway to justice.”

But Andrew Bolin, an attorney who represents doctors and hospitals and spoke Tuesday on behalf of the business-backed Florida Justice Reform Institute, said clearing the way for more medical malpractice lawsuits would worsen problems such as what he described as “OB deserts” — areas of the state that do not have obstetrical care.

“Nonprofit hospitals have to stay open,” David Mica, a lobbyist for the Florida Hospital Association, told senators. “One-third of your rural hospitals in this state are operating at a negative margin.”