Rep. Lehman Franklin: Week 10 Under the Gold Dome

Week 10 at the Capitol was filled with significant legislative progress, including the passage of key bills addressing tort reform, protections for service members, and improved organ transport procedures.

Rep. Lehman Franklin

Week 10 Highlights:

On Tuesday, my colleagues and I returned to the Capitol for Legislative Day 32.

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.

This week we passed tort reform legislation - SB 68.

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.

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.

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

Let’s talk a little more about the tort reform package.
For starters, the bill creates a new framework for claims related to negligent security, limiting property owners’ liability in some situations.
SB 68 changes how medical expense damages are calculated and allow for bifurcated trials.
- 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.
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.
- 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.
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.
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.