Jim Saunders of the News Service of Florida reports that Gov. Rick Scott went to a Jacksonville printing company Wednesday to hand victories to doctors and businesses in the latest lobbying battles about efforts to curb lawsuits.
Taking up a pair of measures that place more restrictions on expert witnesses, Scott signed a bill (SB 1792) that will lead to changes in medical-malpractice cases and also ceremonially approved legislation (HB 7015) that business groups have long argued is needed to rid lawsuits of “junk science.”
“Every decision that I make comes down to one word — JOBS,” Scott said in a news release issued by his office after the ceremony at Drummond Press in Jacksonville. “By signing these important bills, we’ll improve the business climate in the Sunshine State, which means more jobs and opportunities for Florida families.”
But the Florida Justice Association, a trial lawyers group that lobbied heavily against both bills, said the measures will benefit doctors and corporations at the expense of injured patients and consumers. Debra Henley, the association’s executive director, called the medical-malpractice bill “one of the most harmful bills” passed during the 2013 legislative session.
“The law is anti-consumer and further tips the scales of justice against patients and the families of patients who are killed or injured as a result of medical negligence,” Henley said.
While expert-witness issues might appear somewhat esoteric, they have become a key battleground in lobbying fights about adding restrictions to lawsuits. Expert testimony often plays a critical role in medical-malpractice lawsuits and other types of complex cases.
The medical-malpractice bill will require that expert witnesses have the same specialties as the physicians who are defendants in medical-negligence cases. That is a stricter standard than current law, which allows them to have similar specialties.
Another heavily debated part of the bill could lead to what are known as “ex parte communications” between defense attorneys and doctors who are not parties to the lawsuits but have treated the plaintiffs. Such communications would happen outside the presence of the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys contend that the bill would make it harder to find experts to testify against doctors and also say ex parte communications could violate doctor-patient confidentiality.
But the Florida Medical Association and other supporters say the bill will help improve what FMA Vice President Ralph Nobo described as the state’s “toxic medical liability climate.”
“The key to increasing Floridians’ access to medical care is making Florida a friendlier place for physicians to treat their patients,” Timothy Stapleton, the FMA’s executive president, said in a statement.
Scott also used the Jacksonville event to tout HB 7015, which will lead to Florida shifting to more-restrictive standards for admitting expert witness testimony in lawsuits. The change, which Scott signed before a Tuesdaydeadline, will lead to Florida using the same standards as are used in federal courts.
Those standards, known in the legal world as the “Daubert” standards, include a three-part test that looks at whether the expert testimony is “based upon sufficient facts or data;” whether it is the “product of reliable principles and methods;” and whether a witness has “applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case.”
That is more restrictive than Florida’s current standard, which, at least in part, requires judges to determine whether an expert’s testimony is based on scientific principle or discovery that has gained “general acceptance” in the particular scientific field.
Somewhat like the arguments of doctors in medical-malpractice cases, business groups say the tougher expert-witness standards will improve the “legal climate” as Florida competes with other states economically.
“These improvements to Florida’s legal climate will provide predictability in our state’s courtrooms and create stability for our businesses and entrepreneurs, so they can grow their workforce and take us down the road toward economic prosperity,” said David Hart, executive vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
But plaintiffs’ attorneys argued HB 7015 will drive up costs and cause delays as courts determine whether expert testimony will be admitted.
“The bill the governor signed this morning will make it difficult and, in many cases, cost prohibitive to introduce critical expert witness testimony in a case,” Henley said. “As a result, trials will be won not on the grounds of who has the strongest case, but rather who has the largest bank account.”
