ATLANTA – Comprehensive tort reform legislation Gov. Brian Kemp has made his top priority for the 2025 General Assembly session cleared a committee in the Georgia House of Representatives Tuesday.
The Republican-backed bill, which the state Senate passed last month largely along party lines, seeks to curb “runaway” jury awards that are threatening businesses’ bottom lines by driving up insurance premiums, Senate President Pro Tempore John Kennedy, the measure’s chief sponsor, told members of a House subcommittee formed specifically to consider Senate Bill 68. The panel held 15 hours of hearings on the legislature during the last two weeks.
“What we have done is attempt to provide stability to businesses and consumers while assuring fair compensation to those who have been wronged,” said Kennedy, R-Macon.
Among the bill’s nine sections are provisions establishing “premises liability” guidelines for when plaintiffs can sue business owners after suffering injuries during the commission of a crime by a third party outside of the owner’s control and allowing defense lawyers to introduce into evidence whether a plaintiff injured in an auto accident was wearing a seat belt.
It also would require plaintiffs to seek economic damages based only on the actual costs of the medical care they receive and provides for “bifurcation” of trials, meaning liability in a civil suit should be determined before the jury considers damages.
The bill underwent substantial changes as it made its way first through the Senate and then through the House subcommittee, based on the testimony lawmakers heard, including objections that the premises liability provision would let hotels ignore sex trafficking going on inside their walls.
Kennedy denied that going easy on hotels where sex trafficking is taking place is the intent of the bill. He noted that First Lady Marty Kemp has helped push through a series of bills cracking down on sex trafficking since her husband took office in 2019.
“The intention of Senate Bill 68 is not to harbor, enable, or turn a blind eye in any regard to this grotesque activity,” Kennedy said. “It does cause one to bristle when it’s been suggested that … Gov. Brian Kemp, who is married to Marty Kemp, would put his name on a bill that would do anything to reduce the recovery and remedies available to sex trafficking victims and human trafficking victims.”
To respond to those concerns, however, the subcommittee amended the Senate bill to carve out exceptions that would apply to sex trafficking victims. One amendment would allow victims of sex trafficking or human trafficking to avoid bifurcating their cases in order to avoid the trauma of having to testify in court on multiple occasions.
“It would be unlikely for lawyers on either side to want to press a victim of traumatic injuries multiple times,” said Rep. Rob Leverett, R-Elberton, the subcommittee’s chairman.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, objected that the amendment should be broadened to include not just victims of sex and human trafficking but victims of other sexual crimes including rape.
But Rep. Mark Newton, R-Augusta, said the subcommittee heard a lot of testimony from victims of trafficking during the course of the hearings.
“It’s getting special attention from this body because of its importance,” he said.
The subcommittee also amended the bill’s seat belt provision to give judges leeway to allow evidence related to the wearing of seat belts into a case if they deem it appropriate.
The subcommittee – and later the full House Rules Committee – defeated a package of amendments proposed by Evans before approving the bill. The legislation could reach the House floor as early as Thursday.