Claims bills often get a bad rap. Some call the dollar amount that’s asked for excessive, others say lobbyists and lawyers are using the process as a money making venture. But, this year, lawmakers look to be on track to start fixing what many say is a broken claims bill system.
When a sheriff deputy crashed into then 18- year-old Eric Brody’s car it left him significantly brain damaged and wheel chair bound. He requires round the clock care, and last year, lawmakers approved a claims bill awarding Brody a little more than $10-million to help pay for that care.
And William Dillon, who spent almost 30 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, received a little more than $1-million from a claims bill okayed last year as compensation for the time he spent unfairly in incarcerated.
Mark Schlackman is the Senior Program Director for Florida State University’s Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. He works on wrongful conviction cases and has seen several that have had to go through the claims bill processes. And he said at least in those cases, the concerns about claims bills are generally unfounded. For example, he said, for wrongful conviction claims bills, there shouldn’t be a question about excessive cost. A formula helps to dictate how much someone who has been wrongfully convicted should be awarded.
“Which essentially tallies up the number of years for which one has been incarcerated based upon wrongful conviction and uses a multiplier of $50,000 per year, which is analogous to other compensation schemes along those lines,” Schlackman said.
Generally, a claims bill is filed when someone sues an entity with sovereign immunity, like the state, and is awarded more than $100-thousand The idea is to limit the amount of money someone can win in a lawsuit in order to keep governments from going bankrupt. And they’re filed for a number of reasons, But, Schlackman said that’s an incredibly difficult process.
“The burden is exceedingly high. It’s very, very difficult, whether the process is reformed or otherwise, it’s a difficult burden to bare, to be successful in terms of achieving the compensation that’s being sought.”
But House lawmakers are currently considering legislation aiming to reduce the number of claims bills the legislature sees. Representative J.W. Grant, a Republican from Tampa, is the chair of the House Select Committee on Claims bills. He introduced the committee’s proposal for making changes to the state’s claims bill procedure. It’s called the Florida Fair Claims Act.
“We started this process by wanting to get to a point that we had a predictable, equitable and efficient process to resolve claims. So, when we talked about those objectives, we wanted to reduce the number of claims bills. We wanted to encourage responsible behavior by all parties. And we wanted to eliminate or reduce to the extent possible, the political component of claims bills and the arbitrary nature,” Grant said.
The proposed committee bill would put a limit on payouts, and put more rules in place for lobbyists.
“We’ve heard multiple people talk about, in some of the testimony, that there might should be some ethics reform in the way that claims are supported or opposed by lobbyists who represent either an insurance company or plaintiff or anybody else,” Grant said.
The proposed legislation would require lobbyists to disclose who they’re representing before lobbying a lawmaker, and could cap the size of the fee lobbyists or lawyers could collect. The committee began workshopping its legislation Monday evening.
