Lana Venable is govt director of Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch.
BATON ROUGE — Although tort-reform supporters welcomed the passage of a handful of their precedence payments throughout the Louisiana Legislature’s 2025 session, in addition they mentioned roadblocks on the Senate Judiciary A Committee and a governor’s veto muddled the session’s end result
Teams equivalent to Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch (LLAW) and the Nationwide Federation of Impartial Enterprise (NFIB) highlighted the passage of a number of authorized reform measures, together with Home Invoice 431 by Rep. Emily Chenevert (R-Baton Rouge), which limits damages awards in auto accident circumstances if the claimant is 51% or extra at fault, and Home Invoice 434 by Rep. Jason DeWitt (R-Alexandria), which locations a $100,000 cap on uninsured motorists who search to get well damages.
Different profitable measures cited by tort-reform advocates are HB 450 by Rep. Michael Melerine (R-Shreveport), which repeals a earlier authorized presumption that an accident was the reason for a claimant’s harm, and SB 231 by Sen. Mike Reese (R-Leesville), which alters how courts decide the quantity plaintiffs can get well for previous medical payments.
“This session was a blended bag for authorized reform,” Lana Venable, LLAW’s govt director, instructed the Louisiana Report in an e mail. “With greater than a dozen reform payments passing within the Home, solely 4 key items of laws made all of it the best way to the end line. One has been watered down, and two precedence payments have been stopped of their tracks within the Senate Judiciary A Committee.”
Venable additionally mentioned the surprising veto of SB 111 by Sen. Alan Seabaugh (R-Many) was an excessive disappointment. That measure would have barred bodily harm lawsuits in opposition to insurers when sure situations happen, equivalent to good-faith disputes over legal responsibility and medical causation for alleged accidents, or if the insurer has not had the prospect to conduct satisfactory discovery of the info.
“(SB 111) would have introduced much-needed readability to our obscure “dangerous religion” insurance coverage legal guidelines, closing a loophole typically utilized by plaintiff legal professionals,” Venable mentioned.
There have been a number of missed alternatives to rein in “jackpot justice” throughout the laws, she mentioned, together with the failure to go HB 435 by Rep. Peter Egan (R-Covington), which might have restricted normal damages paid by a defendant to anybody claimant or plaintiff to $5 million.
Insurance coverage Commissioner Tim Temple expressed appreciation for the passage of authorized reform measures in addition to a number of insurance-related payments he supported. Eight out of 20 payments Temple supported have been both despatched to Gov. Jeff Landry or have already been signed by him.
“Whereas it’s true that the Legislature handed many good payments this 12 months, I’m disillusioned by the Senate’s rejection of the opposite 12 payments I supported this session – 10 of which didn’t go the Senate Judiciary A Committee,” he mentioned in a ready assertion. “These payments would have meaningfully addressed wanted authorized reforms together with medical billing transparency, a cap on normal damages, the usage of reversionary trusts, limiting lawyer contingency charges, third-party litigation financing and extra.”
The insurance coverage commissioner additionally criticized the enactment of HB 148 by Rep. Jeff Wiley (R-Maurepas), which supplies Temple unilateral powers to reject insurers’ price requests for “purely political, private and different subjective causes.” Beneath the measure, the insurance coverage commissioner can pressure insurers to concern refunds if premiums charged in previous years or a long time are discovered to be extreme, he mentioned.
“As an alternative of serving to handle our insurance coverage disaster, this new regulation makes Louisiana’s insurance coverage trade extra closely regulated than California’s,” Temple mentioned. “This isn’t the best path for Louisiana. We compete in opposition to different states for insurance coverage firm capability and completely should preserve our unbiased, predictable regulatory setting. …”
Will Inexperienced, president and CEO of the Louisiana Affiliation of Enterprise and Business, mentioned LABI secured key victories throughout the legislative session to encourage enterprise funding and strengthen the state’s financial system. However the affiliation additionally reported that “short-sighted and dangerous laws” made its manner via the Legislature and despatched some blended alerts to trade.
“Each time significant reform is shelved or damaging insurance policies advance, we lose floor within the competitors for funding, jobs and innovation,” Inexperienced mentioned in an announcement.
