State lawmakers passed a bill to limit liability for Georgia businesses and health-care providers amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Image: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Legislation aimed at shielding Georgia businesses and health-care providers from lawsuits brought by people who contract coronavirus cleared the General Assembly Friday night during the final hours of this year’s legislative session.
The state House of Representatives passed the bill 104-56 largely along party lines, with Republicans supporting it and most Democrats voting against it. The Georgia Senate followed a short time later, approving the measure 34-16.
The bill would protect a range of Georgia enterprises from mom-and-pop shops to sports stadiums from coronavirus-related legal claims, so long as they post certain warning signs and do not willfully or grossly neglect their patrons or workers.
Hospitals and doctors’ offices would also be shielded from civil liability under the measure that lawmakers pushed through in the closing hours of the 2020 session.
Businesses and hospitals where people contract coronavirus on their premises would not be given total immunity from lawsuits under the measure, Senate Bill 359. But the bar would be set high for bringing a legal claim.
The intent is to give local businesses and health-care workers confidence their actions likely won’t lead to lawsuits as they continue struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic, supporters said.
“The COVID crisis is serious,” said House Majority Whip Trey Kelley, R-Cedartown. “It’s affected all of us. We need to offer protections to our business community and our health-care community.”
But Democrats argued the protections the bill offers to businesses would come at the expense of their workers.
“Businesses don’t get COVID. People get COVID,” said House Minority Leader Robert Trammell, D-Luthersville. “This bill doesn’t seek to protect people against COVID. It seeks to protect businesses against people.”
Under the bill, stores, stadiums, offices, hospitals and more would have to show gross or willful negligence in a way that leads people to contract coronavirus in order be held liable in court.
Businesses and health-care providers would also be protected from all but the most serious negligence cases if they install entrance signs warning patrons and patients about the dangers posed by coronavirus.
In part, the signs would have to read: “You are assuming this risk by entering these premises.”
Warning notes printed on event tickets and wristbands would also be enough to alert patrons that businesses have waived civil liability for COVID-19 claims.
Lawsuits could be brought by those who contract coronavirus or any of its mutations before July 15, 2021. Employees would still be covered under the state’s workers’ compensation laws.
The fine-tuned language for the bill was hashed out by lawmakers, business leaders, health-care professionals and trial attorneys in the hours leading up to the session’s ending Friday night.
Kelley, who oversaw negotiating in a House committee Thursday, pledged to revisit the hastily crafted bill during next year’s legislative session.
Supporters of COVID-19 liability protections framed the bill as needed to help businesses resume relatively normal operations without fear of being hammered by litiation.
Doctors and health-care workers, particularly in small communities and rural areas, would be freed up to treat patients and feel less anxious over potentially being served with a crippling lawsuit, said Bethany Sherrer, legal counsel for the Medical Association of Georgia.
“It’s been a really difficult time for smaller practices across the state,” Sherrer told House lawmakers Thursday night. “Obviously, this is really important to them.”
Hospital representatives and trial attorneys largely agreed on the details of legislation containing the liability protections in talks that stretched late into the night Thursday.
Notably, they settled on the legal standard of “gross negligence” as the liability threshold, agreeing that standard was stiff but not impossible for truly injured Georgians to seek court remedies.
“If there’s gross negligence, the assumption of risk is not going to get the venue or owner of a facility out of jail free, so to speak,” said Alan Hamilton, a trial attorney based in Atlanta and St. Simons Island. “[But only] if there’s gross negligence, which is a very high hurdle.”
Debate on the bill ran up to the final moments of the session, as several Senate lawmakers complained the “gross negligence” standard in the House bill would be too weak to protect businesses. But time had run out to make any more changes, they said.
“Unfortunately, I think we are faced with a hostage choice,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-Macon. “It’s not where we need to be. It’s not where our businesses need to be.”
Last-minute talks also centered on whether professional and college sports teams would be protected under the liability terms if they allow fans in their stadiums when games resume.
Atlanta sports teams including the Falcons, Braves, Hawks and United all backed the bill, said Jonathan Crumly, an attorney and lobbyist representing those teams.
“We will have severe interference with sports games and professional teams having fans in the stadiums if we don’t get COVID-19 immunity passed,” Crumly told lawmakers Thursday.
But others condemned the liability protections, arguing lawsuit immunity for all but the least-safe businesses could come at the expense of workers. The Georgia branch of the AFL-CIO workers’ union called liability measures like the one passed Friday night a threat to worker health and safety.
“By shifting the responsibilities of maintaining a clean, healthy environment that offers adequate personal protective equipment, corporations can claim immunity and therefore wash their hands of any responsibility to the working men and women of our state,” the union said.
Employers will need to provide break time for mothers to express breast milk while at work under legislation that passed the General Assembly Friday.
House Bill 1090 requires employers to provide a private area that is not a bathroom for employees to express breast milk. Break times for that purpose would have to last for “a reasonable duration” and could not cut into an employee’s paid leave or salary.
Those rules would apply for school districts, government agencies and businesses with 50 employees or more, but not for employees working remotely.
Businesses with fewer than 50 employees would be given leeway to skip the requirements if creating private break rooms for employees to express breast milk would create “an undue hardship” either from cost or space constraints.
Sponsored by Rep. Debra Silcox, R-Sandy Springs, the bill passed out of the state Senate Thursday by a 45-1 vote. Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, opposed it.
The bill then cleared the state House Friday evening by a 150-13 vote. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Silcox’s bill mirrors legislation brought in the Senate earlier in the 2020 legislative session by Sen. Zahra Karinshak, D-Duluth.
Speaking from the Senate floor Thursday, Karinshak said the bill would help working moms in Georgia care for their newborns without fear of losing their jobs.
“It is a wonderful day for working families in Georgia to pass this bill,” Karinshak said.
Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, agreed the measure would help Georgia women as well as their children who would also benefit from the workplace protections.
“Let us never forget that we have come full circle to understand that mother’s milk is what the infant needs,” Orrock said.
New scrutiny will be applied to tax credits that relieve film companies from having to pay billions of dollars annually in Georgia under legislation that passed out of the General Assembly Friday.
House Bill 1037, by Rep. Matt Dollar, R-Marietta, would require all film productions located in Georgia to undergo mandatory audits by the Georgia Department of Revenue or third-party auditors picked by the state agency.
It would also tighten rules for how film companies could transfer or sell unused tax credits to other businesses, a common practice for production groups that conduct part of their movie-making work outside Georgia.
The Georgia Senate passed the measure by a 45-1 vote Thursday, with the state House of Representatives following suit on Friday by a 154-10 vote. The bill now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, said the measure would help the state keep a closer eye on how lucrative tax credits are doled out.
“This is full auditing of all the film tax credits,” Hufstetler said Thursday. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
The measure’s passage comes after two scathing audits released in January that found the film tax credit program has been poorly managed while its financial impacts on the state economy were exaggerated.
Supporters of the credit point out it still brings huge economic benefits to the state despite the management shortcomings.
Backers include several local economists who have criticized on the audit findings, arguing the analysis ignored the impacts brought by billions of dollars and thousands of jobs that the industry generates in Georgia each year.
Those economic boons were enough to discourage state lawmakers from trying to curb or cap the film tax credit amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has pummeled the state budget.
Many lawmakers who favor closing tax loopholes over spending cuts to fix the budget were met with calls to keep hands off the film credit during the 2020 legislative session.
Still, the measure was pared back from its original version that proposed including more business operations under the credit program, including media coverage and broadcasts of large sporting events like the upcoming FIFA World Cup. That addition was yanked from the bill before final passage.
Georgia businesses making personal protective equipment like gloves, masks, gowns and hand sanitizer will be eligible for a new tax credit under legislation that passed the General Assembly Friday.
The credit was touted by Gov. Brian Kemp as a show of support for businesses that have switched their operations over to producing important protective supplies since March amid the coronavirus pandemic.
House Bill 846 also includes changes to an existing state tax-credit program benefitting job creators that will let companies use their pre-coronavirus employment numbers to qualify for the credit.
Kemp, along with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, called the two tax-credit measures critical to bolstering businesses that have been hit hard by the virus-prompted economic slowdown.
“This legislative package will shore up those efforts, ensuring that those in the Georgia businesses who have adapted to meet these challenges head on know that we have their back,” Kemp said in a statement.
The Georgia House passed the bill Friday 110-58, a day after it cleared the state Senate 46-3. The bill now needs the governor’s signature, which he has signaled he will give.
Under the bill, businesses manufacturing items in Georgia used to shield people from contracting the virus would be eligible for an additional $1,250 tax credit per job. Those supplies include gloves, masks, hand sanitizer, face shields, helmets, goggles and respirators.
The credit looks to be a boon for more than 250 businesses in Georgia that flipped the switch on their operations to churn out protective gear, including clothing manufacturers and breweries. It would apply to jobs created in those qualified companies through 2024.
Companies that qualify for the state’s Quality Job Tax Credit would also be able to count the number of employees they had in 2019 toward claiming their credit for the 2020 and 2021 tax years.
The change aims to help businesses in underdeveloped areas and for certain industries like manufacturing, warehousing, telecommunications and research that have lost employees amid the pandemic.
“We’re in new times, the COVID era,” Rep. Bert Reeves, R-Marietta, said on the House floor in presenting the bill Friday. “This is something we can do to try to help our businesses rebound.”
Reeves said the tax credits will cost the state an estimated $4.3 million to $13.1 million per year in lost tax revenue.
Georgia lawmakers are mulling a proposed excise tax for vaping products in the 2020 legislative session. (Stock photo by Lindsay Fox)
Vaping will be taxed in Georgia under a measure that passed the General Assembly Friday. Lawmakers also raised the state’s minimum age to vape or smoke cigarettes from 18 to 21.
The measure slaps a 7% excise tax on vaping products sold in Georgia like e-cigarettes, vape pens, refillable cartridges and electric hookahs.
Pushed by Rep. Bonnie Rich, R-Suwanee, the vaping tax was added to a separate bill that raises the minimum age to use tobacco and vape products to 21. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Jeff Mullis, R-Chickamauga.
The bill passed by a 45-8 vote in the Senate Friday after the state House passed it by a 123-33 vote on Thursday. It now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.
Vaping manufacturers and store owners had opposed the excise tax and new licensing rules in Rich’s proposal, arguing higher prices on vaping could drive smokers back to cigarettes after using the tobacco-less products to kick the habit.
Nearly 500,000 people die each year in the U.S. from tobacco-caused diseases, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But supporters of a tax and tighter rules on vaping have stressed the need to protect children from vaping, particularly in light of the risk that kids who get hooked on nicotine could gravitate to cigarettes.
They point to data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration showing nearly 4 million middle and high school students used vaping products in 2018, a large increase from the prior year.
Rallying support for her proposal earlier this week, Rich said the charge on vape sales would help promote safety for kids as more and more youth acquire a taste for vaping in Georgia and the U.S.
“We need to get in front of this and start regulating this industry to protect our youth,” Rich said.
The proposed vaping tax almost died in mid-March when House lawmakers sought to slice the 7% tax in half for so-called “modified-risk” tobacco products like smokeless dip. That special consideration was removed from the vape-tax before it passed.
On the House floor Thursday, Rich said the excise tax should drum up between $11 million and $19 million in new revenues for the state. That would be a boon for Georgia’s coffers at a time when lawmakers are cutting the state budget by more than $2 billion amid the coronavirus pandemic, she said.
But the vape bill did not touch the state’s cigarette tax, which stands at 37 cents per pack. Many lawmakers and budget observers have called for increasing the cigarette tax to boost revenues rather than cut spending for state agencies.
A separate bill has proposed upping the cigarette tax to $1.35 per pack. Backers say that could raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The cigarette tax hike has backing from influential Republican lawmakers including Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, but has stalled in the legislature.
Mullis, who carried the vape bill in the Senate, insisted Friday the vaping tax would not raise any levies on tobacco products.
Flanked by state lawmakers, Gov. Brian Kemp signs Georgia’s hate-crimes bill into law on June 26, 2020. (Photo by Beau Evans)
Hate crimes will be punishable in Georgia for the first time in 16 years after Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation Friday that cleared the General Assembly this week amid tense back-and-forth and tears of joy.
Under legislation Kemp signed Friday, prison time could be meted out for those who terrorize or physically harm others based on their race, color, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, sex, gender, or whether they have a physical or mental disability.
The added penalties would be tacked onto charges for felony crimes and certain misdemeanors like assault or theft. The most severe offenses could add up to two years extra behind bars, plus fines.
The new law also requires state officials to keep data on hate crimes committed in the state for statistical purposes, though records of those crimes will be shielded from public viewing except for alleged perpetrators and victims.
At a signing ceremony Friday afternoon, Kemp said the bill’s passage came as a “silver lining” at a time of social unrest and fears over coronavirus in Georgia. It would not solve all the state’s lingering problems with racism but marked “a powerful step forward,” he said.
“Today as we sign this bill into law, we also reaffirm our desire to put progress ahead of politics,” Kemp said. “We must do our part to ensure that our state is a place where all people, no matter their skin color, can live, work and prosper.”
With Kemp’s signature, the bill restores hate-crimes protections enacted in Georgia in 2000 that were stripped out of state law in 2004 by the Georgia Supreme Court, which ruled lawmakers had not clearly defined a hate crime.
Now, Georgia will no longer count among the few remaining states in the U.S. that do not have a hate-crimes law on the books.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Chuck Efstration, R-Dacula, was hustled though both chambers in the General Assembly on Wednesday after it had stalled for 15 months in the state Senate.
Its passage provoked the legislature’s longest serving member, Rep. Calvin Smyre, to proclaim through tears that it was his finest piece of work as a lawmaker.
“This is a defining moment and this is a great day in the history of our state of Georgia,” said Smyre, D-Columbus, who co-sponsored the bill. “We will never, ever, ever, ever tolerate hate in our state.”
The breakthrough followed the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was gunned down during a pursuit by two white men near Brunswick in February. His death fueled protests this month and prompted powerful lawmakers like Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, to intervene in favor of the hate-crimes bill.
But the bill sparked controversy in the Senate when Republican leaders, wary of protesters focusing their anger on law enforcement, moved to include police officers and other first responders as protected classes alongside race and gender.
Last-minute negotiating led Senate lawmakers to strike an accord that kept the first-responder protections in place but moved them to a separate bill that also passed out of the General Assembly.
Leaders from both parties roundly hailed the bipartisan compromise during Friday’s signing ceremony.
“It all started with the opportunity to actually speak with each other and not to close dialogue,” said Sen. Harold Jones, D-Augusta, who led negotiations for Senate Democratic lawmakers. “And I want to tell the citizens of Georgia that your General Assembly is going to be better for this.”
