The Oklahoma Senate defeated by a vote of 21-25 Senate Bill 1874, which was authored and introduced by the Senate’s Democrat leadership as a lawsuit reform bill. All 21 Republican senators present, joined by four Democrat senators, voted against the measure.
The Senate Republicans viewed the bill as a “watered-down” attempt at tort reform and tried to attach an amendment containing a lawsuit reform package authored by Senate Republican Leader Glenn Coffee, R-Oklahoma City and House Speaker Todd Hiett.
Democratic Senator Charlie Laster blasted the Republicans’ actions, stating that his opponents are more interested in politics than reform.
“Senator Coffee could have filed a so-called ‘meaningful’ tort reform bill before the session, but he didn’t. Instead, he plopped a 124-page amendment to my bill on the desk this morning in hopes we would all abandon the bill that had been heard in committee in favor of one nobody has had time read,” Laster said in a news release. “It’s not like he had a bill that wasn’t heard in the Judiciary Committee. The truth is that he only filed a one-page shell bill and never asked me to hear a committee substitute dealing with tort reform.
“We had 21 Democratic votes for a lawsuit reform measure that would reduce the cost of doing business in Oklahoma for small businesses. Not a single Republican voted for the measure. If only four members of the Senate Republican caucus were interested in helping small business in Oklahoma, the measure would have passed.
“That should show Oklahomans that Republicans in the Legislature aren’t interested in tort reform. They’re interested in politics.”
Coffee, however, called Laster’s measure “a watered down bill that is intended to protect trial lawyers from meaningful lawsuit reform. Republican senators voted against this bill because Oklahoma needs real lawsuit reform, not another trial-lawyer protection act.”
Coffee promised that the “Republicans in the Oklahoma Legislature will continue our battle to stop lawsuit abuse against doctors and small businesses in the state of Oklahoma.”
Laster said SB1784 would address the issue of frivolous lawsuits “on the front end of a case by giving judges more authority to dismiss cases deemed to be frivolous.”
Among its other provisions, the bill would have the Oklahoma Supreme Court devise rules to regulate advertising by attorneys. The Lawsuit Responsibility Act would have required lawsuits to move quickly through the system in six months and would not allow attorneys to drag a case out for years with little or no action. SB 1874 also calls for punishment of abuses of the discovery process by requiring earlier and stronger involvement by judges in pre-trial discovery.
The text of the floor version of SB 1874 may be viewed online at:
http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/2005-06bills/SB/SB1874_SFLR.RTF.
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