Governor Ron Desantis, joined by Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and House Speaker Paul Renner announced legislation to protect Floridians from predatory attorneys. The proposed legislation is intended to decrease frivolous lawsuits and prevent predatory practices of trial attorneys that target Floridians.
This legislation’s intent is to eliminate one-way attorney fees for all lines of insurance and attorney fee multipliers to permanently disincentive frivolous lawsuits and realign Florida’s insurance market.
Under this proposed legislation, Florida’s “bad faith” law would be restructured to bring balance between plaintiff attorneys and insurance companies to incentivize good faith and promote the best interest of the consumer. This provision would also maintain consumer-focused protections to ensure that true bad actors are held accountable.
Additionally, this proposal would institute reforms to protect small businesses from being subjected to paying exorbitant damages when they are not primarily at fault. Under current law, fraudsters and con artists target those small businesses by filing lawsuits when injured, even if they are up to 99% at fault.
This proposal sets standards for awarding medical damages to prevent fraudulent practices that currently plague Florida’s litigation environment. These include requiring medical records, procedure codes, and information regarding health insurance reimbursement to ensure accurate settlements are reached between parties.
The legislative session in which this legislation will be heard begins on March 7th and continues through May 5th.
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