by Dave Williams | Mar 20, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Republican-controlled state House of Representatives narrowly passed GOP-backed tort reform legislation Thursday over objections from Democrats that the bill is both unnecessary and would reduce Georgians’ access to the courts.
Senate Bill 68 passed 91-82 – the minimum number of votes needed to approve legislation in the 180-member House – with several House Democrats supporting it and several Republicans voting against it. The bill cleared the Senate last month, also primarily along party lines.
Gov. Brian Kemp has made tort reform his top priority for this year’s legislative session.
“Today, the Georgia House took another step toward delivering much-needed reform to our state’s current litigation environment,” House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, said after Thursday’s vote.
“The common-sense solutions provided by Senate Bill 68 protect the rights of Georgians who have been harmed, while ensuring that the scales of justice in our courtrooms are fair and balanced. We look forward to working alongside the Senate to champion this critical lawsuit reform across the finish line.”
The bill’s 10 sections include 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 the owner’s control. It also lets defense lawyers introduce into evidence whether a plaintiff injured in an auto accident was wearing a seat belt and requires plaintiffs to seek economic damages based only on the actual costs of the medical care they receive.
Such reforms in Georgia’s civil justice system are needed to curb a growing number of excessive jury awards that are driving up liability insurance premiums, which is hurting businesses’ bottom lines, Rep. Chas Cannon, R-Moultrie, told his House colleagues.
“Reducing frivolous lawsuit and excessive jury awards will stabilize insurance costs, enabling businesses to invest in growth and create jobs,” he said.
But Rep. Al Williams, D-Midway, who also chairs the Liberty County Development Authority, said he’s never had a prospective business tenant he was recruiting complain about high insurance premiums, despite the American Tort Reform Association having named Georgia as the nation’s No.-1 “judicial hellhole” in its annual report on states with the worst climate for tort claims.
Williams said tort reform advocates’ characterization of Georgia’s legal climate flies in the face of the state’s perennial status as the best state in which to do business.
“You can’t say for 11 straight years you’re the best place in the nation to do business … and are a hellhole for insurance,” he said.
Rep. Shea Roberts, D-Atlanta, said there’s no guarantee that passing the bill would lower the costs of liability insurance.
“There isn’t a single line in this bill requiring insurance providers to reduce premiums,” she said.
The House made a series of changes in the Senate’s version of the measure based on input during more than a dozen hours of testimony, including a carveout aimed at ensuring the bill won’t affect the rights of victims of sex trafficking to file lawsuits.
Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, said the carveout means those who suffer from sex trafficking would be treated differently from those victimized by other sex crimes.
“What about a rape victim? What about a victim of sexual assault committed in the stairwell of an apartment complex?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t we want other victims of crime to be able to recover damages?”
House Majority Whip James Burchett, R-Waycross, took exception to Evans’ characterization of how the bill would affect victims of rape.
“There’s not one line in this bill that does not allow a rape victim to bring a claim,” he said.
Evans also criticized a provision in the bill she said would make it harder for victims of crime committed on the premises of a business to bring a lawsuit against the company’s owner. Any crime committed on a business premises would have to result from a defective physical condition the owner was aware of – such as a broken lock, broken window, or faulty security system – in order for the victim to sue, she said.
Other opponents said the legislation would put Georgians at a disadvantage in the civil justice system.
“The courtroom is where everyday citizens, the Davids with a slingshot, are on an equal footing with Goliath,” said House Minority Caucus Chair Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta. “This is an attack on the very fundamental principles that make this country what it is.”
But Rep. Rob Leverett, R-Elberton, who chaired the House subcommittee that took testimony on the bill, said it would make the system fair to both victims and business owners.
“I just don’t think we can do nothing,” he said. “People in our state are telling us they’re having serious problems.”
The bill now goes back to the Senate to weigh in on the changes made by the House.
by Dave Williams | Mar 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation codifying into state law the right of women seeking to become pregnant to receive in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment cleared a Georgia Senate committee unanimously Wednesday.
House Bill 428, which the state House of Representatives passed unanimously last month, was prompted by an Alabama Supreme Court ruling last year declaring that frozen embryos created through IVF should be treated as children. The decision essentially banned the procedure in that state until Alabama lawmakers passed a bill protecting IVF.
“We’re not going to create anything that’s not being currently done in Georgia,” Rep. Lehman Franklin, R-Statesboro, the House bill’s chief sponsor, told members of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee before Wednesday’s vote. “All it does is codify the process of IVF so Georgia families can continue to have this process.”
Franklin has a personal interest in IVF. He and his wife, Lorie, went through IVF four times before she became pregnant. The couple is expecting a daughter in June.
Several other parents who delivered children through IVF testified at Wednesday’s hearing. Andrea Kerr said she sought fertility treatment 15 years ago, and it took five years for her to give birth to a son in 2015 and twin boys in 2016.
“We lost one baby after another after another,” she said. “We could have given up, but we trusted the science.”
Another mother, Suzanne Guy, told the committee she supports IVF but called on lawmakers to regulate a process that typically results in embryos that are nonviable being discarded.
“Most people are unaware of the number of children who are discarded, tested on, and killed in the IVF process because there is no regulation,” she said. “Please do this process ethically.”
Franklin responded that his bill simply codifies IVF into state law but does not address regulating the process.
“Those issues are there,” he said. “But this bill doesn’t dive into it.”
House Bill 428 now moves to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a vote of the full Senate.
by Dave Williams | Mar 19, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Lawyers representing civil rights and voting rights groups asked the Georgia Supreme Court Wednesday to uphold a lower-court ruling that invalidated seven controversial changes to state election laws the Republican-controlled State Election Board (SEB) adopted last fall.
But lawyers for the state, the Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party argued the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to bring their lawsuit and that the SEB was within its rights to approve the new election rules.
The new SEB rules would have required counties to hand-count the number of ballots cast at polling places on Election Day and allowed local election officials to delay certifying results in order to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” if they suspect voter fraud. Other changes included a requirement that signatures and photo IDs accompany absentee ballots, that video surveillance be provided at absentee ballot drop boxes, and that designated areas for poll watchers be expanded.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox Jr. invalidated the changes in a ruling last October, declaring the SEB lacked the legal authority to adopt them.
On Wednesday, Christopher Anulewicz, a lawyer representing plaintiff Eternal Vigilance Action, a Georgia-based advocacy group headed by former Republican state Rep. Scot Turner, argued the SEB strayed into the General Assembly’s constitutional jurisdiction when it adopted the rules changes.
“The SEB is acting in violation of the separation of powers doctrine by engaging in legislative activity,” Anulewicz said. “The separation of powers issue is the driver of this case.”
But Gilbert Dickey, representing the state and national Republican parties, said multiple branches of state government – in this case, the legislative and executive branches – can legally exercise authority in some instances.
“The mere act of the legislature would not prevent the executive from exercising further guidance,” he said.
Bryan Tyson, representing the state, maintained the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to bring the case because the standards governing the right to sue the state government are especially strict.
“There’s something more required when you bring action against the state,” he said. “That is absent in this case.”
by Dave Williams | Mar 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
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.
by Dave Williams | Mar 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp named a Southwest Georgia businesswoman Tuesday to serve as the state’s 11th labor commissioner.
Barbara Rivera Holmes will step down next week from her role as president and CEO of the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce to succeed Bruce Thompson, who died of cancer last fall.
Holmes also is a former member of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents, which she joined after then-Gov. Nathan Deal appointed her to the post in late 2017.
“With her unique experience in economic development – especially in rural Georgia – and education, she brings unmatched knowledge and ability,” Kemp said during a news conference at the state Capitol.
“Throughout my career, I’ve been committed to creating job opportunities,” Holmes said after the governor introduced her. “As labor commissioner, I pledge to continue this work.”
Thompson, a former state senator, was elected labor commissioner in 2022. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March of last year and died last November. Louis DeBroux has been serving as interim labor commissioner since then.
When asked, Holmes didn’t indicate whether she plans to run for a full four-year term next year. However, Kemp stepped in to declare in no uncertain terms that she will run and will do so as a Republican.
She will become Georgia’s first Latina statewide elected official.
