(The Center Square) – The Georgia Senate passed a tort reform bill that would limit some liability awards and protect businesses from lawsuits for acts outside of their control.
Gov. Brian Kemp called the bill his top priority for the 2025 session. He blamed high insurance premiums on the state’s legal environment.
Senate Democrats disagreed that the legislation would do anything to drive down insurance costs. Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, proposed an amendment that would require insurance companies to keep rate increases no higher than the rate of inflation. The amendment failed.
Sen. Derek Mallow, D-Savannah, said while he had letters from several lobbyists on his desk in favor of the bill, he had no letters from insurance companies.
“Until we have documentation and letters from insurance companies that tell us what they are committing themselves to do, then what we are talking about today is still interconnected and interrelated because we really don’t have an answer for what the folks are asking us about and that is, ‘How will my premiums go down?'” Mallow said.
Sen. John F. Kennedy, R- Macon, who sponsored the bill, said, “Of course, that letter is not here.”
“No business that is run by prudent business people, can tell you what their cost is going to be next year and we haven’t even passed tort reform yet, and they expect a letter to be on the desk,” Kennedy said. “No business can guarantee that.”
Georgia ranked fourth in the American Tort Reform Association’s “Judicial Hellholes” report, dropping from the top spot only because other states had a larger volume of “abuses,” the organization said. Nuclear verdicts cost Georgians a “tort tax” of $1,372.94 each year, according to the association and cost the state 137,658 jobs annually.
“Since 2016, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has estimated that litigation costs have risen 7.1% per year – far outpacing inflation,” Kennedy said. “Nuclear verdicts and frivolous lawsuits cost Georgia households an average of $5,035 annually. This broken system cannot continue.”
The bill now goes to the House of Representatives for approval. Kemp hinted in his State of the State Address that if the General Assembly did not pass the bill during the regular session, he would call lawmakers back for a special session.
