The Texas Conservative Coalition Analysis Institute (TCCRI) and The James Madison Institute (JMI) at this time launched the joint publication of a brand new white paper entitled “The Litigation Foyer: Civil Justice Reform and the Way forward for the Texas-Florida Financial Benefit.”
“The Litigation Foyer” report by JMI lays out the historical past of profitable civil litigation reform efforts that made Texas and Florida fashions for the remainder of the nation in terms of financial progress, and the way highly effective curiosity teams are in search of to unwind these positive aspects.
The paper highlights current traits suggesting that legislators in each states ought to rededicate themselves to the rules that helped obtain this nice success within the first place. The paper concludes with suggestions to that finish, together with additional addressing unreasonable harm awards, incentives created by third-party litigation financing, and extra.
The paper paperwork how trial legal professionals and their allied organizations are working to roll again reforms in each states, together with:
Pouring tens of tens of millions into state elections to affect outcomes, together with funding aimed largely at Republican primaries, and focused Florida contributions despatched simply days after laws to weaken reforms was filed.
- Reviving one-way legal professional charge buildings that have been repealed for driving up insurance coverage prices, together with a 2025 Florida invoice that sought to redefine the “prevailing social gathering” earlier than it died in committee.
- Increasing legal responsibility by means of new causes of motion and the repeal of current damages protections, similar to a Florida invoice to permit new classes of noneconomic damages in medical negligence instances with none accompanying caps.
- Leaving third-party litigation financing largely unregulated, giving rise to an trade that’s projected to develop from roughly $15 billion at this time to as a lot as $56 billion by 2035, with no obligatory disclosure of overseas financiers who might search entry to privileged litigation paperwork.
To guard these positive aspects, the paper affords suggestions for lawmakers in each states, together with to:
- Rethink laws designed to forestall unreasonable harm awards and rising public prices, similar to redefining how future misplaced earnings and noneconomic damages are calculated, and pairing any enlargement of medical negligence legal responsibility with cheap damages limitations;
- Rethink laws addressing the dangers of third-party litigation funding, together with obligatory disclosure of funding agreements and safeguards towards overseas authorities and sovereign wealth fund involvement in U.S. litigation; and
- Rethink an affordable timeline for the Lawyer Normal’s unique jurisdiction over election crimes, permitting native officers an outlined window to behave earlier than the state intervenes.
TCCRI Government Director, Tom Aldred, acknowledged concerning the paper: “Texas has accomplished an distinctive job making a business-friendly surroundings, largely by means of its multi-decade tort reform efforts. This paper holds these reforms up for example that we hope different states will observe.”
Dr. Robert McClure, President & CEO of JMI added, “Florida’s rise as one of many nation’s premier locations for enterprise and capital was not an accident. It was constructed over a long time, partially, by deliberate authorized reforms that gave companies and households confidence in a good, predictable system. This paper is a reminder that these positive aspects will be undone if we let our guard down.”
