Florida’s “judicial hellhole” status has been deteriorated for the first time in four-years. What’s the problem? The Florida Legislature.
The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), in its latest Judicial Hellhole Report, states that the Legislature has not done much to reduce lawsuit abuse in Florida even though Gov. The state’s litigation environment has been improved by Ron DeSantis, and the Florida Supreme Court.
ATRA last year praised the Governor, the courts and the state for improving its environment for three consecutive years. ATRA ranked the legislative branch at its top for the second consecutive year, despite the fact that no Florida jurisdiction was included in the 2021 and 2022 Judicial Hellhole rankings.
ATRA President Tiger Joyce stated that while we applaud the Legislature’s efforts to pass reforms in a special session to address the state’s ongoing property insurance crisis, there is still much to do to eliminate the state from the Judicial Hellholes Report.
As per the 2018 report by the group, Florida was ranked the worst “Hellhole” state in the country. It dropped to number 2 in 2019. It was placed on the watchlist instead of the list and dropped out of the rankings in 2020. The entire state, including the Legislature, was removed from the list in 2021’s report.
According to Tuesday’s 2022 report, lawmakers must address inflated medical damages and deceptive trial lawyer advertisement, as well as the property insurance crisis.
Next week, the Legislature will act on property insurance during a Special Session. According to the report, personal injury lawyers continue using “letters of Protection” to conceal the true value medical damages from jurors.
ATRA estimates that each Florida resident is losing $812.52 per year due to the litigious tort environment. ATRA also states that the state loses 173,000 jobs every year. ATRA says Florida’s gross product could grow by $17.7billion if it was able to stop lawsuit abuse.
Joyce stated that “Lawsuit abuse, excessive tort costs wipeout billions of dollars worth of economic activity every year.” While it might be a perceived wealthy company that is hit with huge verdicts, unfortunately it is the consumers who are the ones paying the price. This comes in the midst record-high inflation.