Ohio’s Gov. Taft Pushes Hard to Get Comprehensive Tort Reform

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Insurers and business interests appear to have won another victory in Ohio, as Gov. Robert Taft will soon sign a broad tort reform bill that caps jury awards and limits products and obesity liability. This follows on the heels of Ohio’s first-in-the-nation legislation requiring asbestos and silica claimants to meet certain medical illness criteria before proceeding with their cases.

Taft, a Republican, had warned the Ohio Legislature in a letter that not passing Senate Bill 80 would be “a tremendous failure.” The bill caps noneconomic damage awards at $350,000 and places a 10-year statute of limitations on products liability, while protecting food merchants from “frivolous” obesity lawsuits.

Injured Ohioans and businesses being sued would both have sufficient rights under pending legislation to limit injury lawsuits, House Speaker Larry Householder said as Republican leaders were continuing to work out differences over the bill. At issue was whether to place caps on jury awards to compensate injury victims for pain-and-suffering.

The GOP-controlled Senate wanted the caps to limit multimillion-dollar verdicts that businesses say are causing insurance companies to raise their premiums in anticipation of being sued. Republicans in charge of the House were taking a more cautious approach, concerned about the constitutionality of caps, which opponents of the measure say deny Ohioans their day in court. Householder likened the debate to two parties in a car accident–the person driving and the person being hit.

“You’re either going to be suing or being sued,” said Householder, a Republican from Glenford in Southeast Ohio. “You have to look at the rights of both individuals.”

Householder had postponed a possible vote while negotiations continued. A vote in the full House eventually came a day later.

Householder’s comments followed Republican Gov. Bob Taft’s warning to Householder in a letter that lawmakers face “a tremendous failure” if they do not pass the bill. The House Judiciary Committee last week removed the caps from the bill, leading to Taft’s letter Friday. Both Taft and Householder are Republicans. Taft wants a bill that includes caps.

“I strongly believe that this will be a tremendous failure if the legislature cannot enact a meaningful comprehensive tort reform bill by the end of session,” Taft said in the letter.

Householder said he was confident the House and Senate would reach a deal that would result in a strong bill all could support, including Taft. Also Tuesday, the Senate approved a related House measure that would make it harder to sue companies over workplace injuries.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Keith Faber, a Celina Republican, requires an injured worker to prove an employer did something deliberately intending to cause an injury.

The bill is similar to a measure ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court in 1999, which said the burden of proof required of injured workers was excessive. Business groups support the bill, saying hurt employees can still recover medical expenses and lost wages from workers’ compensation, and can still receive payment if a business violated safety requirements.

The owner of a Canton printing company said he was sued by an employee hurt in October 2001 after another worker disabled a safety mechanism on a press without the company’s knowledge. The worker had already received workers’ compensation and $6,000 because of the safety violation, said Ray Gonzalez, president of Associated Visual Communications, which employs about 35 people.

But the company also settled a lawsuit over the injury for $4,000 and paid out $30,000 in legal fees. The pending bill would have prevented the lawsuit while ensuring the worker received fair compensation for his injury, Gonzalez said.

But trial attorneys said the bill created too high a standard of proof for injured workers.

Topics Lawsuits Legislation Workers' Compensation Ohio

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