ATLANTA – While most of
the action on tort reform in this year’s General Assembly session has been in
the Georgia Senate, the state House of Representatives is about to jump into
the fray.
House Speaker David
Ralston has appointed 15 House members to an ad hoc committee that will
consider legislation seeking to make significant changes in Georgia’s civil
justice system, including a bill introduced into the House this week, the
chamber’s first tort reform measure of the 2020 legislative session.
“For the last seven years
in a row, Georgia has been named the best state in the nation in which to do
business,” Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, said in announcing the formation of the
Special Committee on Access to the Civil Justice System. “Any
legislation which may negatively impact our business climate and limit access
to our civil justice system must be carefully considered.”
The Senate began working
on tort reform early in the session and already has passed one tort reform
bill. Two others have cleared Senate committees and await action by the full
Senate.
Representatives of
insurance companies, physician groups and tort reform advocates have pointed to
“runaway” jury verdicts in Georgia in recent years that have driven up the cost
of insurance premiums as evidence of the need for tort reform. Opponents,
spearheaded by the trial lawyers lobby, say the bills are skewed in favor of
insurers and make it harder for victims of car crashes and medical malpractice
to get their day in court.
House Bill 1089, sponsored by Rep. Tom McCall, R-Elberton, would require separate trials to determine guilt and assess damages in cases where the plaintiff seeks more than $150,000 in damages. Like other legislation pending before the Senate, it also would allow defense lawyers to introduce as evidence whether an injured plaintiff was wearing a seatbelt at the time of a motor vehicle crash.
The new committee will be
chaired by House Majority Whip Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown.
ATLANTA – State lawmakers are mulling whether to broadly expand the statute of limitations in Georgia for people to sue who were sexually abused as children by members of businesses and nonprofit groups like the Catholic Church or Boy Scouts of America.
Since 2015, victims in Georgia have been
able to sue their abusers and organizations that covered up the abuse before
they turn 23 years old or within two years after those victims realized what
they suffered was in fact abuse.
Victim advocates have praised that statute-of-limitation
window as a tool for securing justice for people who repressed memories of
their abuse for decades. But they argue Georgia law is still too limiting.
House Bill 479, dubbed the “Hidden
Predator Act,” would expand the age range and timeframe for many more adults in
Georgia to file lawsuits for sexual abuse they suffered as children.
Supporters say the changes represent a
much-needed legal show of support for victims, while opponents warn it could
unleash a wave of litigation capable of crippling social-benefit groups like
schools and churches.
Sponsored by Rep. Heath Clark, R-Warner
Robins, the bill would let anyone between the ages of 23 and 52 file suit
before July 1 of this year if they were abused as children. It would also
extend the time people have to file suit from two years to four years after
they realized they were abused.
That would give people suffering from
repressed memories and deep trauma more time to understand the effects of abuse
and decide whether to seek litigation as adults, said Emma Hetherington, a
University of Georgia assistant clinical professor who runs the school’s
Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic.
“It’s very akin to a veteran in combat
who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder,” Hetherington said at a House
Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.
Most contentiously, the bill would allow
for a one-year window starting this July for victims of any age to sue their
alleged child abusers for abuse that happened at any time.
The one-year window would also apply to
lawsuits filed against employer groups that harbored an abuser or buried
evidence of the abuse – but only for alleged abuse that happened since July 1,
1973.
Other states like New York have recently
passed laws giving victims a limited window to sue for cases dating back
decades ago. Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, said Wednesday that Georgia
should follow their lead.
“We’ve got to get in line,” she said. “We
are preventing victims from getting in that line without passing this bill.”
But attorneys concerned about the impacts
of more lawsuits on Georgia argue much of the bill’s language is too broad and
could prompt a rush to the courts.
Mark Behrens, a Washington, D.C.-based corporate defense attorney representing the American Tort Reform Association, highlighted news reports stating the enactment of New York’s statute-of-limitations law change inspired hundreds of lawsuits to be filed in a single day.
“The financial impacts are going to be
enormous in your state,” Behrens said Wednesday.
The Catholic Church especially faces
exposure to lawsuits for abuse that occurred decades ago, during a time when
church officials had a different policy for disciplining abusive priests than
they do now, said Frank Mulcahy, executive director of the Georgia Catholic
Conference.
He worried that policy, which involved
sending abusive priests to “treatment” rather than alerting law enforcement,
could draw churches into legal jeopardy due to a provision in the bill allowing
victims to sue organizations for “concealing (or) attempting to conceal”
evidence of priest abuse.
“We know today it’s virtually impossible
to cure a pedophilia person. But we didn’t know that at the time,” Mulcahy
said.
“We would be involved in concealing that
under this definition,” he added, “even though what we did was to try to help
the person and the church as well.”
House lawmakers on the committee did not
vote on Clark’s bill Wednesday. It is expected to go through some changes
before returning for a committee vote in the coming days.
ATLANTA – A proposed fee for bookings of ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft cleared the Georgia Senate Wednesday on the promise that revenues from the new charge would go entirely to fixing the state’s roads and public transit systems.
The path to imposing a flat fee instead
of state sales taxes on Uber and Lyft has wound through two legislative
sessions, lobbyist pushback and Hurricane Michael.
Originally, House Bill 105 by Rep. Sam
Watson, R-Moultrie, only involved an income-tax exemption for farmers receiving
federal disaster aid payments to recover from Hurricane Michael, which pummeled
the heart of Georgia’s agriculture industry in late 2018.
But last week, Senate lawmakers tacked on an amendment to Watson’s bill that proposes charging a 50-cent fee for ride-share bookings for single passengers. The fee would be 25 cents for multiple passengers.
With the fee, ride-share companies like Uber
and Lyft, plus taxi and limousine companies, would not have to pay state sales
tax.
Representatives for San Francisco-based
Uber favor paying the fee over sales taxes, arguing a tax levy would drive up
costs for riders and drivers.
Revenues from the fee would be dedicated
to transportation and transit infrastructure projects in the state, said Sen.
Steve Gooch, who spearheaded the amendment.
“We believe that this revenue is
important for transportation,” said Gooch, R-Dahlonega.
If signed into law, the fee could drum up
between $24 million and $45 million for the state in its first full year in
effect, according to a fiscal note. County and city governments, which would
not benefit from the fee, would lose out on between $16 million and $26 million
the first year.
The heavily revised bill passed the
Senate by a 51-2 vote, with Sens. Renee Unterman and Greg Dolezal voting
against it. It now heads back to the House, which could give it final passage.
But even more legislative maneuvering is
needed first before money from the fee could go exclusively to transportation
and transit.
State law requires that any proposals to
dedicate tax revenue to a specific purpose gain voter approval via a
constitutional amendment, which first needs to pass the legislature by a
two-thirds vote.
A proposed constitutional amendment was
tucked in Tuesday to an entirely separate measure, House Bill 164, dealing with
fees raised from scrapping old tires. With this proposal, the General Assembly
is angling to expand its ability to dedicate sales taxes for specific purposes,
said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler.
“Anything that the legislature would want
to dedicate in the future, they could do that,” Hufstetler said Wednesday.
Wednesday’s vote in the Senate stems from earlier efforts to collect sales taxes on third-party retailers like Amazon and Google that facilitate online transactions for other businesses.
House and Senate lawmakers hashed out a
compromise for those so-called “marketplace facilitators” in January after
pledging to give Uber an exemption in separate legislation.
A similar 50-cent fee on Uber and Lyft
rides had previously been slated for inclusion in a measure sponsored by Rep.
Kevin Tanner, R-Dawsonville, that seeks to raise more funding for rural transit
services.
Last week, state officials announced
farmers in the southern part of the state could start applying next month to
receive Hurricane Michael recovery funds part of a $347 million federal aid
package.
ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at tightening rules on third-party companies that play a role in negotiating pharmaceutical drug prices between insurers and local pharmacies in Georgia passed the state House Wednesday.
Companies called pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) act as
go-betweens for prescribers and insurance companies that contract with health
insurers to negotiate lower drug prices for patients.
But critics accuse them of muddling up the process,
prompting increases in drug prices and unnecessary delays in filling prescriptions.
Three bills cleared the House by near-unanimous votes
Wednesday to increase regulations on pharmacy benefits managers. They now head
to the Georgia Senate.
House Bill 946, by Rep. David Knight, R-Griffin, would
require pharmacy benefits managers to set prices within 10% of a nationally
used average and require them to undergo financial audits by the state
Department of Insurance. It would also require all rebates from drug makers to
be distributed to patients, rather than allowing pharmacy benefits managers to
keep a portion.
Knight’s bill would also ramp up penalties against certain
fees and the practice of steering, in which PBMs direct patients to use
associated pharmacies with potentially higher costs. The practice was
prohibited last year in Georgia, but Knight’s bill proposes levying a new fine
against PBMs that disregard the state anti-steering law.
Speaking from the floor, Knight said his bill would crack
down on the “heinous practices” of pharmacy benefits managers.
“We will not take this in Georgia anymore,” Knight said. “It
is not good health care policy. It is not good for the patients and it is not
good for providers.”
The bill passed by a 165-1 vote with Rep. Matt Gurtler,
R-Tiger, voting against it.
Knight’s bill mirrors separate legislation filed in the
Senate by Sen. Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge. That measure, Senate Bill 313, drew
support from hospital and pharmacy groups as a way to keep smaller pharmacies
in Georgia from going out of business amid increasing drug costs. It cleared
the Senate Insurance and Labor Committee on Tuesday.
In previous committee hearings, PBMs have argued the bill
would hamstring them when negotiating with big pharmaceutical companies for
lower prices, potentially driving up costs overall by giving drug makers free
rein to set prices as they please.
Industry representatives also said Burke’s measure ignores
the influences of other players like drug manufacturers and wholesalers in the
complex series of transactions that lead to final prescription costs.
A separate bill by Knight passed unanimously on the House floor Wednesday that would require the state Department of Community Health, which administers Medicaid in Georgia, to study whether to remove prescription drug benefits from the state’s Medicaid managed care system.
The measure notes West Virginia carved out pharmacy benefits
from its Medicaid manager list and saved millions of dollars in administrative
costs.
The House also unanimously passed a third measure, House
Bill 918 by Rep. Sharon Cooper, that would bolster rules on steering and relax
some penalties for pharmacies that are audited by PBMs.
Cooper, who chairs the House Health and Human Services
Committee, said Wednesday her measure aims to stop PBMs from fining pharmacies
for small clerical errors like mislabeling, which can cost local pharmacies
thousands of dollars.
“We have to put a stop to corporations running medicine,”
said Cooper, R-Marietta. “They’re going to put pharmacists out of business.”
ATLANTA – A
$27.4 billion mid-year budget covering state spending through the end of June
overwhelmingly cleared the Georgia Senate Wednesday.
Senators
took the fiscal 2020 mid-year spending plan the state House of Representatives approved
last month and made a number of changes, many aimed at squeezing more savings
out of the tight budget Gov. Brian Kemp proposed in January. It’s the product
of 4% across-the-board spending cuts Kemp ordered last summer for the current fiscal
year to help offset sluggish state tax collections.
“It was a
difficult year,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Hill,
R-Reidsville, told his Senate colleagues before Wednesday’s 52-1 vote. “The
Senate has done its best to meet the needs of the state given our fiscal
situation.”
The Senate
agreed with many of the changes the House made to the spending plan, including an
appropriation of $104.2 million for the annual mid-year adjustment to account
for enrollment growth in the state’s public schools. Senators also sided with
the House to restore several budget cuts the governor had recommended, including
$1.2 million to hire more agents and analysts for the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation’s Gang Task Force and develop a database to track gang activity,
and $1.3 million for local accountability courts, a criminal justice reform
initiative aimed at reducing the prison population.
The Senate
supported House additions of $235,000 to help the secretary of state’s office
with cybersecurity measures and the legal costs of election-related litigation,
and kicked in $244,000 in startup costs for the new state commission that will
oversee Georgia’s medical cannabis program.
Besides
agreeing with many of the budget cuts restored by the House, senators acted on
their own to restore $258,000 in cuts to foster care services. Before this
year’s legislative session started, Kemp declared improving foster care a major
priority.
“In an era
where we’re constantly seeking foster-care parents, it’s a good thing to spend
this money,” Hill said.
Senate
Minority Leader Steve Henson congratulated Hill and members of the Senate
Appropriations Committee for restoring many of the governor’s spending cuts. But
he complained the mid-year budget still leaves the state short of funding many
critical needs because of the revenue hit from an income tax cut Republicans pushed
through the General Assembly two years ago.
“Our
constituents sent us here to make tough decisions,” said Henson, D-Stone
Mountain. “If we don’t have state roads, a strong public education system and
protections of our drinking water and air, we’re letting the people down.”
The mid-year
budget now goes back to the House, which could either agree with the changes
the Senate made or resolve the two chambers’ differences in a legislative
conference committee.
Even tougher
decisions on a $2,000 teacher pay raise proposed by Kemp and whether to follow
through with a second phase of the 2018 income tax cut await lawmakers later
when they take up the governor’s $28.1 billion fiscal 2021 budget plan.
