Testimony in support of SB 68, “Civil Practice; substantive and comprehensive revision of provisions regarding civil practice, evidentiary matters, damages, and liability in tort actions”
Testimony from:
Marc Hyden, Director, State Government Affairs, R Street Institute
In SUPPORT of SB 68, “Civil Practice; substantive and comprehensive revision of provisions regarding civil practice, evidentiary matters, damages, and liability in tort actions”
February 10, 2025
Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Strickland and members of the committee:
My name is Marc Hyden. I am a Georgia resident and the director of state government affairs for the R Street Institute, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization. Our mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government in many areas, including in the legal and property and casualty insurance industries. This is why SB 68 is of special interest to us.
Perhaps more than any other state, Georgia has been beset by the consequences of its broken tort system. The American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) has regularly ranked Georgia one of the country’s number one “judicial hellholes.” The reason is simple: “Georgia’s civil justice system is plagued by skyrocketing nuclear verdicts, inflated awards for medical costs, expansive premises liability, and laws that set up defendants to fail creating endless liability,” writes ATRF. “Lawsuit abuse and excessive tort costs wipe out billions of dollars of economic activity annually. Georgia residents pay a ‘tort tax’ of $1,213.80 and 123,900 jobs are lost each year.”
Georgia’s Office of the Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire has also researched the impact of Georgia’s tort system, and its findings corroborate ATRF’s research. Claims, claim payouts and legal involvement has been surging in Georgia, and as insurers increasingly bear the brunt of lawsuit abuse, they incur the costs. To stay afloat, they must pass the increased costs on to consumers in a phenomenon called social inflation. In the end, individuals and businesses pay the price for the state’s dysfunctional civil system, and it is hard to claim to be the top state for business when the tort system places them under such duress.
Thankfully, lawmakers, trade associations and think tanks, like my employer the R Street Institute, have identified many of the primary drivers of lawsuit abuse. In Georgia, some of them stem from anchoring, premises liability, the seatbelt gag rule, inflated medical costs and cherry-picking of judicial jurisdictions. Anchoring is the process by which a plaintiff attorney plants a seed for an inflated verdict in the minds of jurors—inducing them to believe unprecedented payouts are customary. Too often, jurors then deliver an enormous verdict. In fact, “improper anchoring creates a greater than 80% inflation beyond appellate-court-determined highs for ‘reasonable compensation,’” the New York Law Journal reported.
Our flawed premises liability law has likewise wreaked havoc on Georgia. It permits plaintiffs to sue and too often secure enormous judgements against large companies for crimes that did not occur on the companies’ property and that they did not perpetrate. This was exemplified by a case involving the shooting of a young man in 2007 at a bus stop near Six Flags Over Georgia. Despite the crime happening outside of its property, Six Flags was found liable and required to pay over $30 million to the plaintiff. Meanwhile, the assailants were only asked to pay 8 percent of the total verdict. Certainly, the young man deserved justice, but the jury’s decision raises serious questions.
Georgia is also an outlier in its seat-belt gag rule. This forbids jurors in auto accident cases from considering whether plaintiffs were wearing their seatbelts during accidents as they apportion damages. This was on display in a tragic Gwinnett County case after a Ford truck rolled over and killed its occupants. Ford was forbidden from presenting evidence that might have proved that both of the occupants were either not wearing or not properly wearing their seatbelts. The jury awarded their children $1.7 billion because they believed that Ford should have reinforced the vehicle’s roof. The verdict has since been overturned in appeals. Now Ford might be able to present the full evidence in a retrial, but until the seatbelt gag rule is definitively addressed, imbalanced verdicts will continue.
Beyond these issues, there are serious concerns about plaintiff attorneys introducing inflated medical expenses into evidence in personal injury cases and exploiting the judicial system to cherry-pick jurisdictions they believe will be more favorable to their case, among many other provisions. Fortunately, SB 68 contemplates all of these issues and aims to reform anchoring and premises liability; eliminate the seatbelt gag rule; ensure that only actual medical costs are reimbursed, not inflated theoretical costs; and curtail the cherry-picking of judicial jurisdictions.
Combined, these provisions will set Georgia on a path to a brighter future, help secure its spot as one of the best places for business for years to come and alleviate the tort tax burdening Georgians. Perhaps best of all, none of these measures will prevent Georgians from receiving the justice they deserve. Rather their rights and liberties are enshrined in Georgia code and will continue to be. For these reasons, we appreciate Sen. John F. Kennedy’s leadership on this issue and urge your support for SB 68.
Thank you,
Marc Hyden
Director, State Government Affairs
R Street Institute
(404) 918-2731
mhyden@rstreet.org