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Florida Justice Reform Institute

Pensacola families fight to change Florida’s ‘Free Kill’ law. Here’s why.

March 26, 2025/in Pensacola News Journal

Pensacola News Journal

Mollye Barrows – Pensacola News Journal – March 26, 2025

Key Points:

  • Florida’s so-called ‘Free Kill’ law could be repealed under HB 6017
  • Legislators are considering the repeal bill which would remove a provision restricting who can file a medical malpractice lawsuit
  • Pensacola families are among those fighting for the law to change

In May of 2017, Dawn Harris Bybee had a funeral for her 28-year-old son, Sean Harris, the day before he was supposed to get married.

Sean and a friend, Chris Surgner, had been celebrating at his bachelor party when they were hit by an SUV crossing Pine Forest Road. They were heading back from a store where they had gone to replace a ping pong paddle.

Bybee says video taken of the scene after the accident showed Escambia County paramedics failing to follow basic medical protocol when treating the young men, and she believes they died because of their negligence.

“When you watch the video, you see Shawn being lifted by his shoulders. They check for a carotid pulse and let him literally flop back down on the ground,” Bybee said. “And it’s worse with Chris.”

As a nurse and a mother, Bybee wanted to see Escambia EMS held accountable for the incident, as well as review and improve their training procedures.

However, she couldn’t pursue a lawsuit against Escambia County because of Florida’s so-called “Free Kill” law, which restricts who can sue for medical malpractice.

Parents want change: Pensacola nurse fights to change EMS policies after video of son’s care at crash scene
Sean was single and had no children when he died. Under Florida law, only a deceased person’s spouse and children under 25 can pursue claims for pain and suffering due to loss of life.

Florida is the only state in the country with this law on the books.

“We went to go see an attorney, and Sean’s dad said to him, ‘Sir, are you trying to tell me that I can’t take anybody to court because of medical negligence or malpractice because he’s 28 years old, he was unmarried, and he didn’t have any children?’” Bybee recalled. “My son’s life was valued differently.”

That would change if Florida legislators pass House Bill 6017, a repeal bill that would remove the provision restricting who can sue for medical malpractice.

The House of Representatives approved the bill on Wednesday. It will now go to the Senate. If passed, the legislation will take effect July 1.

Jackie and Tony Nichols want to see it pass. They lost their 28-year-old son, Aubrey, in 2014, who was also single and had no children.

The Pensacola musician was born with a heart defect that caused him to go into cardiac arrest.

Heartbroken, his parents never doubted what happened until they saw discrepancies in his medical records that they say revealed Escambia County emergency crews had tried several times to intubate Aubrey but mistakenly inserted a breathing tube into his esophagus instead of his trachea, a potentially life-threatening complication.

Aubrey’s parents, both in the medical field, say they understand he had a slim chance, but it was better than “no chance because of the intubation.”

Like Bybee, they wanted to see changes at EMS that would hold people accountable and potentially prevent future mistakes, but felt their concerns were dismissed.

Lawsuit filed for medical malpractice: Widow sues surgeon, hospital for allegedly removing husband’s liver, covering up mistake
“I feel like I was ignored because the people who needed to hear me knew that I have no recourse,” Jackie Nichols said. “They knew I can’t even bring a lawsuit. Money is what talks. Money for my son makes me nauseated. I would not want money for my son. I just wanted people to hear me and nobody wanted to hear. I think that’s what this law does is it stifles people who have the right to be heard.”

Some critics of the bill include medical, insurance and business organizations like the Florida Medical Association, Florida Justice Reform Institute and the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

They’re urging legislators not to pass it, saying it will lead to more medical malpractice lawsuits and higher insurance costs.

Former state Rep. Joel Rudman of Navarre, who is also a physician, is among those who pushed back on that argument, telling legislators that as a doctor his medical malpractice premiums haven’t changed in a decade and insurance protection from lawsuits is not one of his top three overhead costs.

“The only doctors that want to see this statute remain in place are bad doctors and, unfortunately, we have a few of those in the state of Florida,” Rudman told a House committee considering the bill last week.

Bybee and the Nichols are hopeful at the progress the bill is making through the legislature.

“Here’s the wonderful thing that has come out of all of this,” Bybee said. “That no parent ever will have to ask whether their child’s life is valued differently than someone else’s.”

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/escambia-county/2025/03/26/floridas-free-kill-law-may-face-repeal-under-house-bill-6017/82638732007/

https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/fjri-news.jpg 800 800 Becky Lannon https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Florida-Justice-Reform-Institute.jpg Becky Lannon2025-03-26 15:31:222025-05-18 15:35:49Pensacola families fight to change Florida’s ‘Free Kill’ law. Here’s why.
Florida Justice Reform Institute

How much do you pay for property insurance in Florida? Here’s some good news. | Opinion

March 14, 2025/in Pensacola News Journal

Pensacola News Journal

Between 2019 and 2023, average homeowner premiums in Florida surged nearly 60%.

William Large – Florida Justice Reform Institute
March 14, 2025
Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this month revealed good news when it comes to Florida’s insurance market. Yes, good news.

During the last three years, the Florida Legislature has passed meaningful reforms to address unrestrained litigation and reign in skyrocketing attorneys’ fees, and their efforts are bringing down the cost of insurance, inviting more competition into the market and giving consumers more choice for coverage on their home and auto.

Between 2019 and 2023, average homeowner premiums in Florida surged nearly 60%. Not only were homeowners paying more for property insurance, but they had access to less coverage and fewer providers to choose from.

This was partly due to a legal environment that was too friendly to lawsuits against insurers. For a long time, Florida law allowed plaintiffs’ attorneys to recover their fees if they prevailed against insurers, even if the amount they secured through litigation was minimal; these fees were “one way” because plaintiffs faced no reciprocal risk that they would have to cover the insurance company’s attorney fees if plaintiffs lost. Assignments of benefits were also misused by third parties in order to access these statutory, “one way” attorney fees

Florida homeowners were left to foot insurance bill hikes

Unfortunately, the average Florida homeowner was left to foot the bill when insurance providers were forced to raise costs to cover excessive litigation. Many insurers determined that it was too costly to do business in Florida. By the end of 2024, more than 30 insurance providers had exited Florida’s marketplace.

The reforms began in 2021 when Senate Bill 76 required plaintiffs to notify an insurer before a lawsuit is filed. In turn, insurers are given an opportunity to reconsider a coverage denial and attempt to resolve a claim before it is the subject of litigation. The legislation also offered consumers additional protections from unscrupulous contractors.

Then in 2022, Senate Bill 2D, developed and passed during a special session called by the Governor, included additional tort reforms. This legislation prohibited assignment of the right to obtain attorney fees to anyone other than an insured or beneficiary named in the policy, thus eliminating abuse of these arrangements by third parties as a way to obtain attorney fees.

Later in 2022, another special session led to the passage of Senate Bill 2A. Senate Bill 2A eliminated the statutory right to recover attorney fees in a lawsuit arising under a residential or commercial property insurance policy.

Importantly, this legislation also implemented greater protections for consumers. The law requires insurance companies to be more responsive to their customers by limiting the time they have to respond to claims.

Building on these reforms, the Florida Legislature also passed House Bill 837 in 2023 to eliminate exorbitant attorney’s fees, strengthen negligence standards and provide stronger defense to those targeted by excessive litigation.

While our state leaders acted swiftly to develop, pass and implement solutions, we knew it would take time for these policies to stabilize the market. Now, the trends are moving in the right direction, providing much-needed relief to Florida’s homeowners.

Florida has 11 new insurance providers

In 2024, Florida had the lowest average homeowners’ premium increases in the nation, with an average statewide rate hike of just 1%. At the same time, premiums in other states have surged by more than 20%.

In addition, there are 11 new insurance providers in the market. And the providers that remain are expanding their business and filing for rate decreases.

This is only the beginning. As timelines run out for trial attorneys to pursue litigation under the more litigation-friendly law, the environment will continue to stabilize, reducing the burden of excessive litigation and bringing down costs even further.

William W. Large

William W. Large

Our state is proof that strong conservative leadership on the state level can lead to meaningful reforms. The steps our Governor and Legislature have taken are bringing stability to the market, leading to more choices and lower costs for Florida homeowners.

William Large is the president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute.

https://www.pnj.com/story/opinion/columns/your-voice/2025/03/14/florida-home-property-insurance-desantis/82241314007/

https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/fjri-news.jpg 800 800 Becky Lannon https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Florida-Justice-Reform-Institute.jpg Becky Lannon2025-03-14 16:56:102025-05-20 13:12:06How much do you pay for property insurance in Florida? Here’s some good news. | Opinion
Florida Justice Reform Institute

Health care providers seek legal protections from lawsuits stemming from delivery of care during pandemic

April 24, 2020/in Pensacola News Journal

 

PNJ

Health care providers seek legal protections from lawsuits stemming from delivery of care during pandemic

Christine Sexton, News Service of Florida Published 2:53 p.m. CT April 24, 2020 | Updated 4:27 p.m. CT April 24, 2020

As Gov. Ron DeSantis looks to open the state back up, he is being pushed by health-care providers to shield them from lawsuits stemming from the delivery of care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state’s largest physician, hospital and nursing-home associations are asking DeSantis to issue executive orders that would protect their members from lawsuits because of actions that occurred — or didn’t occur — during the crisis. Several groups even provided a fully worded proposal to the governor this week.

DeSantis has remained silent on whether he will follow the lead of other governors who have provided immunity to health-care providers. The governor’s office did not answer questions about the requests.

The Florida Hospital Association and other groups sent a letter Wednesday to DeSantis that voiced worries about potential lawsuits against front-line workers. Among the groups signing onto the letter were the Florida Nurses Association, the Florida Society of Anesthesiologists, the Florida Nurse Practitioners Network, the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida.

“While the battle rages, it is unfortunate, but necessary, that steps be taken to avoid another crisis — a proliferation of inappropriate and unwarranted lawsuits,” the letter said. “In the future, after the current awareness of the incessant harsh realities confronting patients and providers has faded, there may be some who would seek to take advantage of the COVID-19 crisis by suing providers based on applications of standards of care that would fail to account for the special challenges presented by a devastating pandemic.”

The Florida Medical Association, the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association and the Florida Justice Reform Institute last month were the first organizations to formally request protections from medical-malpractice lawsuits for care provided during the COVID-19 crisis.

“An executive order is important to send a message to physicians that the state of Florida backs them and respects what they are doing (and)  agrees that they should not be sued in the future for any liability issues … for the handling of the COVID-19 crisis,” said William Large, president of the Florida Justice Reform Institute, which is backed by business groups and lobbies for lawsuit restrictions.

Signed by Large, Florida Medical Association President Ronald Giffler and Florida Osteopathic Medical Association President Eric Goldsmith, a March 26 letter recommended that DeSantis issue an executive order that would limit liability; provide sovereign immunity protections for doctors who were complying with a DeSantis emergency order that shut down optional health-care services; or amend sections of the state’s so-called “Good Samaritan Act” so it would apply to physicians working during the pandemic.

Nursing homes, meanwhile, are seeking protections from cases that can be filed against them for violating nursing-home residents’ rights. The Florida Health Care Association sent a letter to DeSantis on April 3 asking for  immunity from civil and criminal liability for “any harm or damages alleged to have been sustained as a result of an act or omission in the course of arranging for or providing health care services” during the pandemic.

Spokeswoman Kristen Knapp said the nursing-home association has not received a response. DeSantis told reporters last week that, “I think it’s under review. I haven’t made any decisions yet and we’ll look.”

The request remains pending as the number of COVID-19 cases at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities continues to climb. As of Friday morning, 2,576 COVID-19 cases had been reported involving residents or staff members at 335 long-term care facilities across the state. Those cases had a nearly 11% mortality rate.

Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Mary Mayhew said the state has made “monumental efforts” to help the long-term care industry respond to the virus. Mayhew said last week that the infection prevention and control needed to combat the virus “frankly exceeded the level of infection prevention typically associated with our nursing homes and assisted living facilities.”

The state last week also suspended the licenses of two nursing-home administrators in Jefferson County because of alleged deficient care.

Any attempt to shield nursing homes and other providers from lawsuits, however, likely will face fierce opposition from groups such as plaintiffs’ attorneys. Jacksonville attorney Steve Watrel said now is not the time to grant broad immunity.

“The court system exists for a reason,” Watrel said. “The court system exists to ferret out meritorious from non-meritorious claims. And broad brushes of immunity are not only not appropriate right now but would lead to an increase of injury and death. Because, unfortunately, the reality of human nature is, without the threat of accountability, responsibility dwindles.”

Knapp said nursing homes have been receiving “conflicting guidance from federal, state and local government entities” and that COVID-19 has required facilities to take actions they ordinarily would not take. For instance, Knapps said homes in Broward County are being told by local health department officials to keep residents in their rooms with doors closed, which would “be a violation of health care standards on a normal day.”

“In the midst of this unprecedented crisis, long term caregivers should be able to direct their skills and attention to helping individuals who need them, and not have to worry about being sued for making these types of tough decisions while trying to comply with government directives,” she said in a statement to The News Service of Florida.

Some other states have provided legal protections for care provided during the pandemic. For example, governors in Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Nevada, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin have issued orders protecting physicians from lawsuits, according to the American Medical Association.

Knapp said governors in Arkansas, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin issued executive orders limiting lawsuits against nursing homes. Also, lawmakers in New York, New Jersey and Kentucky passed legislation, she said

But shielding doctors, hospitals and nursing homes from lawsuits has long been a controversial issue in Florida, with the issue flaring again in recent years.

Interest in medical-malpractice protections was refueled by Florida Supreme Court rulings in 2014 and 2017 that struck down limits on non-economic damages in malpractice lawsuits.

The state House considered a far-reaching malpractice bill in 2019 that would have addressed the court rulings. But the proposal cleared only one panel in the House and never was considered by the Senate.

Jacksonville attorney Chris Nuland, who lobbies for physician groups, said other issues, such as expanded practice authority for pharmacists and advanced practice registered nurses, dominated his time during the 2020 session. Changes to the malpractice system were “out there on the scene, although no one really went after it this year,” he said.

Leading up to the pandemic, the state’s medical-malpractice insurance market was profitable and stable. Florida ranked fourth in the nation in terms of premiums written with roughly $562 million in 2018, according to a Florida Office of Insurance Regulation report.

The report shows 65% of the premiums came from physicians’ policies. On average, the report noted, medical malpractice rates increased for physicians by 3.5%.

The last time the Legislature delved into nursing home lawsuits was 2014, when it agreed to pass legislation that prevented “passive” investors from being named as defendants in cases related to injuries suffered by nursing-home residents. The bill also made it harder to sue nursing homes for punitive damages, requiring courts to hold evidentiary hearings before residents could pursue punitive-damage claims.

https://www.pnj.com/story/news/2020/04/24/coronavirus-health-care-providers-seek-legal-protections-lawsuits-stemming-covid-19-cases/3022412001/

https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/fjri-news.jpg 800 800 RAD Tech https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Florida-Justice-Reform-Institute.jpg RAD Tech2020-04-24 15:57:502024-11-25 09:48:50Health care providers seek legal protections from lawsuits stemming from delivery of care during pandemic
Florida Justice Reform Institute

BP Must Cover Actual Losses

August 10, 2013/in Pensacola News Journal

 

Pensacola News Journal

Aug. 10, 2013 7:27 AM   |  

Recent news reports and court filings have raised some troubling questions about who is benefiting from the BP Deepwater Horizon settlement, whether claimants are being treated equally and what that might mean for the economic victims of future industrial accidents.

After the accident occurred in April 2010, rather than bunkering down and defending itself with litigation, BP waived its statutory limits of liability and agreed to pay all legitimate claims.

After first paying about $6.7 billion to claimants directly or through the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, BP agreed in April 2012 to continue paying claims for “loss of profits, income and/or earnings” related to the accident through a settlement originally estimated to cost another $7.8 billion.

Under the settlement, a business can make a claim using a well-established accounting method called the business economic loss rule. This rule requires calculating variable profit – defined as monthly revenue less corresponding expenses – and then comparing that amount with the variable profit for a comparable period before the accident.

Claimants do not have to show any link between the accident and their profit loss in order to get paid. They simply have to be in one of the economic loss zones and demonstrate a variable profit loss using comparable snapshots of time that the claimant gets to select.

But on Jan. 15, the claims administrator issued a statement that dramatically re-interpreted the settlement. According to this new policy, a business’s revenues do not need to be matched with expenses for a comparable period – any decrease in revenue, even if it’s just a function of timing between recording cash receipts and disbursements, qualifies as a loss.

For example, say a contractor completed identical jobs in 2009 and 2010. In 2009 they were paid in August but in 2010 they were paid in September.

Because the contractor can choose which months to compare in their claim, they can show a revenue decrease for August 2010, even though they were paid in September and did not actually lose any money. Under the business economic loss rule, there is no profit loss but under the new interpretation, the contractor lost money in August 2010.

BP is now challenging the administrator’s interpretation of this settlement.

BP points out that “(m)ore than two-thirds of large (business economic loss) claims … appear to be based on fortuitously timed cash inflows and outflows … rather than actual lost profits.”

Some of the claimants might surprise you, too. In addition to soliciting people to file claims for damages unrelated to the accident, some lawyers are filing claims for their own supposed losses. The claims administrator even acknowledged that under the new interpretation, awards to lawyers for their own claims “appear disproportionate when compared to award amounts for claimants in other industries.”

Common sense dictates that an actual loss, not accounting sleight-of-hand, should be a bottom-line element of recovery.

If the BP claims process spins out of control, as it appears may be happening, future settlements that speed up and maximize payments to victims may be harder to reach. Simply put, if a settlement agreement can be changed so drastically that the results bear little resemblance to the expected impact, then defendants will be less inclined to settle cases and more inclined to litigate every point available in the hopes of ultimately delaying and reducing their total payout.

The Florida Justice Reform Institute’s mission is to fight wasteful civil litigation and promote fair and equitable legal practices. The BP Deepwater Horizon settlement, as written, fits that public policy. The court administrator’s interpretation does not.

Written by 

William Large, President of the Florida Justice Reform Institute 

 Pensacola News Journal

See Full Article

https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/fjri-news.jpg 800 800 RAD Tech https://www.fljustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Florida-Justice-Reform-Institute.jpg RAD Tech2013-08-10 15:55:412024-12-11 17:53:50BP Must Cover Actual Losses
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