Tort reform is back in Georgia (sort of) and long overdue

The leadup to the 2024 legislative session suggested that the Georgia General Assembly would pass meaningful comprehensive tort reform-curtailing the Peach State’s rampant lawsuit abuse that harms consumers and businesses alike. Even Gov. Brian Kemp threw his weight behind the effort, but something curious happened. As session approached, optimism from tort reform advocates dissipated into the ether.

“Legislative Democrats and their allies in the legal industry have joined forces to sink efforts to enact tort reform,” the Capitol Beat News Service wrote in January 2024. Despite Republicans holding majorities in the House and Senate, they failed to transform the tort system. By the end of legislative session, only bills to study the impact of lawsuit abuse and forbid plaintiffs from simultaneously suing motor carriers and insurers for the same alleged offense became law.

These were important steps forward. However, they weren’t the comprehensive reforms needed to fundamentally improve the legal environment, but it wasn’t the bill authors’ fault. The organized opposition to tort reform ensured that achieving wide-reaching reforms would require a multi-year strategy. Now Kemp is once again touting the need to limit lawsuit abuse, and he reiterated his support for tort reform at a recent high-profile luncheon.

“We took the first meaningful steps on this issue this past session by creating a mechanism to gather needed information that will guide the next steps,” Kemp recently announced. “And as we gather that data, I’m ensuring we listen to all stakeholders.” Kemp plans to host three roundtables to hear from them to guide his agenda and hopefully lead to long-overdue reforms.

The American Tort Reform Association named Georgia the country’s number one “judicial hellhole” for its broken legal system. “Georgia replaced California on the top of this year’s list thanks in no small part to a massive $1.7 billion nuclear verdict that can charitably be called concerning,” the association reported. “Georgia state courts issue some of the country’s largest nuclear verdicts in state and superior courts, as personal injury lawyers cash in on plaintiff-friendly judges that benefit greatly from trial lawyer campaign contributions.”

Lawsuit abuse has reached a tipping point and has become a drag on Georgia’s economy. The state has become a veritable mill for nuclear verdicts, which are when the courts award $10 million or more in a single case. As of earlier this year, Georgia’s courts had delivered at least 39 nuclear verdicts since 2018, and these rulings can have dire consequences.

Thanks to lawsuit abuse, more than 120,000 jobs are lost here every year, the state’s GDP is around $13 billion lower than it would otherwise be and Peach State residents pay a “tort tax” of over $1,200 a year. The “tort tax”—also called social inflation—stems from companies being forced to raise their prices to battle lawsuits and pay out massive verdicts. So how can Georgia improve?

They can begin where they left off earlier this year by reintroducing common sense reforms that ultimately failed to pass. “Efforts came up short to curb premises liability, which allows plaintiffs to sue companies for injuries they didn’t inflict but happened on/near their property, and repeal the seatbelt gag rule—a bizarre law that forbids juries from factoring-in car accident victims’ seatbelt usage when apportioning damages,” I wrote in April.

These were missed opportunities, which would have helped correct the legal system, but lawmakers ought to also consider instituting reforms curtailing “anchoring”. It is a process in which plaintiff attorneys plant seeds in jurors’ minds by suggesting they should deliver verdicts that far surpass what has long been considered reasonable. As juries continually fall prey to anchoring, what is considered reasonable grows as verdicts snowball in size.

Tort reform advocates are often painted in a negative light and wrongly accused of trying to prevent plaintiffs from receiving justice, but that is patently false. Every person deserves fair, equal treatment under the law, but justice shouldn’t be tilted in favor of one party and be a drag on the population as a whole.

Until lawmakers fix the tort system, the legal environment will continue to worsen to our detriment. Perhaps next legislative session, the General Assembly will finally tackle lawsuit abuse and Georgia can relinquish the embarrassing dishonor of being the nation’s number one “judicial hellhole.”