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Florida Justice Reform Institute

Average citizens face an uphill battle against interest groups to get laws changed in Florida

March 8, 2024/in WFTS.com

WFTS

For years, citizens have tried persuading lawmakers to repeal Florida’s “free kill” law
Posted: 3:28 PM, Mar 08, 2024 Updated: 7:41 PM, Mar 08, 2024
By: Katie LaGrone

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As Florida’s 2024 legislative session ends, Investigative Reporter Katie LaGrone is showing you a side of Florida’s law-making process the public rarely gets to see.

For months, she followed two average citizens trying to persuade lawmakers to change Florida’s “free kill” law.

In Focus:
•  The Challenge to Influence without Big Money
•  “Something has to change”
•  Florida’s Law Factory: “It’s emotional, it’s draining, it’s exhausting.”
•  Big Business and Special Interest Groups
•  Lawmaker: “You’d like my help? Tell her to be respectful.”
•  Florida’s Free Kill Law Remains

The Challenge to Influence without Big Money

It’s just before 9 am in January, one day before the start of Florida’s 2024 legislative session.

Sabrina Davis and Marcia Scheppler have taken off from work and are on the road but are not off the clock.

“Wow, this is the day,” Marcia said from the passenger seat as the two women set off for Tallahassee from Sabrina’s home in Gainesville.

“How many appointments do we have today,” asked Sabrina.

“A lot,” said Marcia, who lives in St. Lucie.

Marcia and Sabrina have been hustling for years to get heard in Tallahassee. In a city where lobbyists and special interests often call the shots, Sabrina and Marcia are just average citizens.

Yet, they hoped the power of their personal stories would be enough to connect with lawmakers and convince them to change state law.

 “Something has to change.”
In this case, their fight revolves around Florida’s 34-year-old Wrongful Death Act, which critics describe as the “free kill” law. It essentially says if a doctor’s mistake kills an unmarried adult, their families can’t sue for pain and suffering

Sabrina and Marcia want the law eliminated.

Neither of them had ever heard of the law until they each found themselves being impacted by it.

In 2020, Sabrina’s 62-year-old father went to a Tampa hospital for knee pain and died five days later. Her father, a Navy veteran, was on a blood thinner and had a history of blood clots. But Sabrina said despite their requests to do an ultrasound for blood clots, the doctor refused and instead ordered physical therapy.

“They thought my dad needed bed rest. They thought he might have pulled a muscle. It was red, and it was swollen. It was so obvious that it was more than a pulled muscle,” she explained to us last year.

While Florida’s Board of Medicine disciplined the doctor for her father’s death, the state’s Wrongful Death Act has prevented Sabrina from being able to litigate the case in civil court because her father was unmarried and she was over the age of 25 at the time of his death.

For Marcia, the law prevented her from being able to sue over the death of her 29-year-old son, Joseph. Marica explained how her son went into septic shock in 2019 after being denied treatment outside of a Florida hospital.

Joseph had Down syndrome, autism, and was non-verbal, but since he was an adult and not married, Marcia isn’t able to bring the case to court under state law.

Marica believes the law isn’t just morally and ethically wrong but is also discriminatory since Florida law does not allow people with intellectual disabilities to be able to marry legally in the first place.

“I’m hoping one way or another we can protect the future Joe’s because that’s really what I’m all about,” she said.

Over the past few years, Sabrina and Marcia have bonded over their personal tragedies and their mission to get lawmakers to quash this law. Florida is the only state in the U.S. that limits who can sue for pain and suffering over fatal medical mistakes.

Florida’s law factory:  ‘It’s emotional, it’s draining, it’s exhausting.”
For two women never involved in politics, they’ve become pretty good at playing the game.

Sabrina and Marica have worked the phones for months leading up to the 2024 legislative session. They traveled across the state to meet with lawmakers, all in an effort to persuade lawmakers to repeal subsection 8 of the Wrongful Death Act.

‘It’s emotional, it’s draining, it’s exhausting,” said Sabrina when we spoke with her in Tallahassee at the start of this session.

This year marks her third session trying to convince lawmakers to change the law, it’s Marcia’s fourth.

Unlike lobbyists who are paid by companies or organizations to advocate for or against a bill under consideration, Sabrina and Marcia are using their own money and personal time to try and influence lawmakers.

For two days at the beginning of the session, we followed them from office-to-office meeting with lawmakers to try to drum up support for a bill that was introduced to fully repeal the law.

“You want to make them remember you, you want to stand out, you want them to hear your voice and not forget you,” Sabrina told us during a break.

Several meetings with lawmakers became emotional for these citizen advocates.

“What this doctor took from my son and I was a big part of our lives, and I want to face him in court,” Sabrina told one lawmaker while getting emotional.

“This is a glitch. This needs to be cleaned up,” Representative Rick Roth said in response.

Roth also revealed that his sister died of medical negligence and was unmarried at the time, leaving his own family impacted by the law.

But while many lawmakers agree Florida’s “free kill” law unfairly and unjustly impacts affected Florida families, eliminating it has been a decade-long losing battle.

Big Business and Special Interest Groups
“This is a law that is pretty much in the books because of insurance companies and because of very large special interest,” explained Representative Anna Eskamani, a Democrat who represents Orlando.

“The hardest bill that people pass are ones that aren’t supported by lobbyists or interests, and so this is tough,” Democratic Senator Lauren Book told us after meeting with Sabrina and Marcia.

Book has introduced legislation to repeal the law but those efforts never garnered enough support to even make it to a Senate hearing.

“It’s hard, it’s a tough process,” Book said when referring to the power, money and influence big business and medical companies have had on the ability to keep this law in place for more than three decades.

The law was originally passed in 1990 as a way to keep doctors from leaving the state and keep medical malpractice premiums down. But three decades later, there’s no evidence doctors are leaving the state in droves and medical malpractice premiums in Florida are consistently among the highest nationwide, proving the existence of this law hasn’t had any impact on those rising costs.

Lawmaker:  “You’d like my help?  Then tell her to be respectful.”

But amid this rarely seen process of how influence is made, peddled, and used to get things done; our cameras also captured just how fragile lawmaker support can be in a puzzling moment that caught everyone in the room off guard.

During the last week of the session, we returned to Tallahassee as Sabrina continued to meet with lawmakers. One of them was Representative Dr. Joel Rudman, a physician who acknowledges that the law has done nothing to lower medical malpractice premiums.

As a result, Representative Rudman has pledged his support to help Sabrina gain support to repeal the law in future sessions. But that support seemed to suddenly waiver when the lawmaker became agitated after Investigative Reporter Katie LaGrone started asking questions.

“I don’t mean to be sort of aggressive here,” reporter LaGrone said. “But this has been a more than decade old fight to repeal what lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have described as an injustice, cruel, a glitch, something that clearly needs to be cleaned up. But here we are, and it’s still on the books, and countless families are being impacted,” LaGrone said.

Representative Rudman began to explain, “I think there’s s factions on both side. On the one side, you have the trial attorneys. We certainly don’t want this to be a windfall. We certainly don’t want there to be a glut of frivolous lawsuits.”

But when reporter LaGrone tried to explain that there was no evidence repealing the law would result in a glut of “frivolous” lawsuits, Representative Rudman responded by raising his voice and pointing aggressively at reporter LaGrone.

“Well, now you’re interrupting me. So do you want to ask me the questions, or would you like me to ask you the questions,” he asked, clearly frustrated.

Representative Rudman then looked at photojournalist Matthew Apthorp and motioned for him to stop recording the interview.

“Let’s cut that,” he said. “Let’s cut that. No, you’re going to let me finish, or we’ll throw this out. Start over. I was making two points, okay. Let me make my points. Who’s the physician here,” he said angrily.

But before he ended his outrage, he looked over at Sabrina Davis, who was standing off to the side, and stated,” Sabrina, you’d like my help? Then tell her to be respectful,” referring to reporter LaGrone. 

The remarks appeared to suggest the lawmaker’s support seemed to hinge on how the reporter was asking questions.

 Florida’s “Free Kill” Law Remains
This session five separate bills were introduced to repeal all or a portion of Florida’s so-called free kill law, the most since advocates started asking lawmakers to quash it more than a decade ago.

One bill was introduced by Senator Clay Yarborough and went so far as being discussed during a Senate hearing where special interest groups weighed in. However, the bill eventually died without explanation.

William Large with the Florida Justice Reform Institute is a longtime Tallahassee lobbyist who represents several of those special interest groups.

When asked if lobbyists and special interest groups make it more difficult for average citizens to get heard by lawmakers, Large said no. “They’ve been heard loud and clear,” he said.

When asked if he thinks special interest groups have an unfair advantage over average citizens because they often contribute thousands of dollars to lawmaker campaigns, Large said, “I think everyone is on an equal playing field.”

But even lawmakers acknowledge that’s not always the case.

When we asked similar questions to Senator Yarborough, whose bill on the topic was debated for the first time in a Senate hearing, Yarborough responded, “That’s a fair question. It really depends on which member you ask.”

Yarborough also said while his bill died this year, he plans to introduce another bill to repeal the law next session.

“It doesn’t matter to me what some of the external paid hired folks are saying. This law is unjust, and I want it off the books,” he said. 

But for now, it stays, leaving Sabrina Davis and Marcia Scheppler continuing a mission they knew would take time to complete but didn’t realize it would be so hard to win.

“I’m hugely disappointed,” said Marcia.

“I’m hurt and disappointed,” said Sabrina before adding, “I tried. I fought with everything I had. I’m not giving up, but this is an exhausting fight.”

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/average-citizens-face-an-uphill-battle-against-interest-groups-to-get-laws-changed-in-florida#factory 
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 Tech2024-03-08 15:55:412024-12-05 12:56:20Average citizens face an uphill battle against interest groups to get laws changed in Florida
Florida Justice Reform Institute

Florida made phone robocall law more business-friendly leaving voters asking why

July 27, 2023/in WFTS.com

WFTS

Under Florida’s 2021 telephone solicitation law, robocall call complaints plummeted

Robo calls

FULL STORY: https://wfts.tv/3Ybh0WM After years of annoying consumers, two years ago
Florida lawmakers became more involved in the robocall game by cracking down on these
nuisance calls and
 texts with the passage of the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA).
By: Katie LaGrone Posted at 2:18 PM, Jul 27, 2023 and last updated 6:02 PM, Jul 27, 2023

TAMPA, Fla. — After years of annoying consumers, two years ago Florida lawmakers became more involved in the robocall game by cracking down on these nuisance calls and texts with the passage of the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA).

The unopposed, bi-partisan bill required all telemarketers to get prior written consent before they could call or text consumers in the state.

The aggressive new Florida law also gave citizens for the first time, the power to fight back through lawsuits if telemarketers didn’t stop contacting them.

“It was helpful, it allowed me the opportunity to have a voice,” explained Pinellas County resident Cheri Aul. She filed one of the first-class action lawsuits under the state’s new FTSA law.

Aul sued David’s Bridal in 2021 after the wedding gown company continued to hound her with dozens of unwanted text messages despite her repeated replies to stop.

Cheri spoke with us back in 2021 and described how the company’s text messages just wouldn’t stop.

“Then the next day I got another one. Now months later, and it’s continuing,” she told us shortly after filing the lawsuit.

Around the state, within a year of going into effect, Florida’s new phone solicitation law proved to dial back the overall problem of unwanted calls.

According to data recently provided to us by Florida’s Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services which tracks complaints about unsolicited communication, between 2021 and 2023 the number of robocall complaints to the department decreased by more than 80%. While complaints to the department about unsolicited communication also dropped by more than half.

Complaints from Floridians to the Federal Trade Commission show a similar pattern.

In fact, consumer advocates described Florida’s 2021 FTSA as the tightest anti-robocall law on the books, having such a positive impact on consumers in the state, the FTSA became a model for other states looking to crack down on unsolicited calls.

“It was the most protective of consumers in the country,” explains Tampa-based consumer attorney Billy Howard. His firm, The Consumer Protection Firm, specializes in robocall litigation. He also represented Aul in her class-action lawsuit against David’s Bridal.

“It was the gold standard. It was driving down robocalls and people were really happy because they could finally stop them,” he explained.

But just when Florida’s new robocall law was proving to do everything it set out to do for consumers, earlier this year that changed. State lawmakers brought back the issue. Only this time their focus seemed to be less on protecting Florida consumers and more on helping big businesses get back in the robocall game.

In Tallahassee this session, while debates over abortion rights, culture wars, and guns dominated the headlines, big business, and special interest quietly lobbied lawmakers to change Florida’s telephone solicitation law because businesses claimed they were getting sued too much under the 2021 law.

HB 761 called for several changes to Florida’s telephone solicitation law including:

•  narrows what constitutes an auto-dialer by requiring a platform to both automatically select and dial numbers to trigger liability
•  allow businesses to call or text consumers if they have an established business relationship with the consumer or in response to an inquiry
•  requires consumers who receive a text message in violation of the FTSA to reply “STOP” prior to filing suit
•  gives businesses a 15-day safe harbor period after a consumer sends a “STOP” message.

“The FTSA has huge unintended consequence of ensnaring legitimate businesses in frivolous litigation. This is literally bankrupting businesses,” an attorney for Florida’s Justice Reform Institute, an organization that advocates for changes in legal liability, said during the public comment section of a committee meeting back in March.

“I can tell you about case after case after case of these ridiculous lawsuits,” another attorney told lawmakers.

But despite asking for data showing 2021 had caused a deluge of “frivolous” lawsuits, Florida Representative Mike Beltran said he was never provided any proof.

Beltran, a Republican representing parts of Hillsborough County, led the charge to get the 2021 FTSA law passed.

“I said show me one frivolous lawsuit, they didn’t bring one complaint in,” he recently told Investigative Reporter Katie LaGrone during an interview about the motivations behind changing a law that seemed to work for Florida consumers.

“We have gone against consumer protection and in favor of big business,” he said about the changes.

Beltran stopped short of explaining why his Republican colleagues would amend a telephone solicitation law to favor businesses. But, campaign finance records may provide a clue.

In the months leading up to the 2023 legislative session, campaign finance records showed some of the same companies that lobbied for changes to Florida’s telephone solicitation law also donated thousands of dollars to Republican Senator Clay Yarborough, who introduced the more business-friendly version of the law in the Senate. (Yarborough did not respond to a request for comment.)

And even more money went to Representative Bob Rommel, the GOP chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. Rommel, a business owner, is also big tort reform supporter who wielded the power to move forward changes to the FTSA. (An office spokesperson told us Representative Rommel was not available for an interview.)

According to campaign donations, in January, Rommel’s PAC received $25,000 from the Committee of Automotive Retailers, a PAC led by longtime Florida lobbyist Ted Smith. He also heads the Florida Automobile Dealers Association, one of the organizations that lobbied hardest for changes to the law.

Smith explained why making the FTSA more friendly to businesses was one of his group’s top legislative priorities this past session.

“It was significant because all of my dealers really want to do is their routine business practices,” he said. “This change will now allow my dealers who have an established business relationship with you as a customer, to make a very important call or contact back to you concerning your car,” he said.

When asked if his PAC’s donations were a “pay to play” move to ensure the legislature’s super GOP majority would approve changes to make the FTSA more friendly to businesses, Smith responded, “We contribute unabashedly to campaigns to help people get elected into their House or Senate seat. That’s what PACs are all about. It’s not about influencing votes. It’s about assisting good people as they desire to get into office,” he said.

Their efforts worked.

By the end of the session, the legislature passed a new, more business-friendly telephone solicitation law. Representative Beltran was the only Republican in the House to vote against the bill.

“Everyone who didn’t have their head under a rock knew about the anti-consumer effects of the 2023 phone solicitation bill,” he said.

Consumer attorney Billy Howard said he believes the new law was driven by dollars.

“Money is the only thing that motivated the change of law. The Chamber of Commerce, the automobile industry and companies like David’s Bridal, they want to text people and call people without their permission, that’s the only motivating factor,” he said.

Cheri Aul’s 2021 class action lawsuit against David’s Bridal ultimately went nowhere. Two years after she filed suit, the company filed for bankruptcy. But not before it, too, spent thousands of dollars to hire its own lobbyist to change Florida’s phone solicitation law.

It’s a new law, Cheri fears will bring back the unwanted messages she fought so hard to stop.

“If the businesses or politicians, whoever, if they’re the ones making the decisions with money pushing for certain things, the consumer is the one that loses out in the end,” Aul said.

To reduce unsolicited telephone calls and/or text messages, consumers can subscribe to Florida’s Do Not Call list.

https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/state/florida-made-phone-robocall-law-more-business-friendly-leaving-voters-asking-why 

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 Tech2023-07-27 15:55:222024-12-05 14:41:17Florida made phone robocall law more business-friendly leaving voters asking why
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