Week 10 Highlights:
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On Tuesday, my colleagues and I returned to the Capitol for Legislative Day 32.
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With just two weeks left until Sine Die on April 4, we’re working hard to advance legislation that will deliver real results for the people of Georgia.
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This week we passed tort reform legislation - SB 68.
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On Tuesday, we passed the Dignity and Pact Act, which would prohibit the Georgia Department of labor from offering exemptions to minimum wage laws for people with disabilities.
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We also passed SB 109, which is similar to legislation that we passed in the House earlier this session. It protects active-duty service members and their families by preventing group life insurance policies from excluding or limiting liability for the death of an insured active-duty service member. Being “active duty” alone cannot be a reason to deny a claim.
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We also gave final passage to SB 58, the Georgia Transporting Life-Saving Organs and Personnel Act. The bill essentially codifies into law that vehicles transporting organs are designated as c critical emergency vehicles.
Go here to learn more about all the votes we took this week!
Digging Deeper
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Let’s talk a little more about the tort reform package.
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For starters, the bill creates a new framework for claims related to negligent security, limiting property owners’ liability in some situations.
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SB 68 changes how medical expense damages are calculated and allow for bifurcated trials.
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Trials split into two parts would involve one where it’s decided who’s responsible for the damage, and one that decides how much money should be awarded.
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It also limits arguments on noneconomic damages by prohibiting attorneys from discussing these damages in closing arguments unless they were already addressed in opponent arguments.
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In the course of a trial, attorneys can’t tell the jury how much money they think someone should be awarded. Instead, the jury will decide what it thinks is fair.
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SB 68 also amends current law to allow a party to file a written notice of dismissal at any time before the 60th day after the opposing party serves an answer.
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There’s a lot more in this package, but at the end of the day, the goal is to limit excessive lawsuits and establish a fairer litigation environment - which will lower costs for businesses and consumers.
Coming Up:
We’ll return to the Capitol on Tuesday, March 25 for our 11th week of session!