Lawsuit reform - The time has come to do the job right

In 1985, Ronald Reagan issued a strong challenge to Congress and the nation. While talking about the need for a balanced budget, he uttered one of the most poignant questions ever asked in a political speech:

"If not us, who? If not now, when?"

That is the same thing Missourians have been asking about legal reform for the last two years.

Under the previous administration, efforts to end the junk lawsuits that are driving our doctors and jobs out of Missouri were obstructed and ultimately defeated. The frustrating part was that those who opposed lawsuit reform freely admitted that there was a problem with medical malpractice and that something needed to be done, but they stood in the way of meaningful change. They left for tomorrow what should have been done yesterday.

Perhaps the most exciting part of having Matt Blunt as governor is knowing that now we have a leader who is unwilling to simply acknowledge there is a problem. He is willing to do something about it. With his support, we have begun the process once again of eliminating the frivolous lawsuits that serve only to line the pockets of a few while damaging our access to affordable, quality health care.

In 2004, our legal reform bill was purposely watered down in order to get the previous administration to sign it into law. It did not include everything we wanted, but we were willing to compromise in order to get something, anything done. Now we will be able to pass a strong bill that includes the sweeping level of reforms we need.

Some of the key provisions include ending the practice of venue shopping. The bill requires lawsuits to be heard and dealt with in the area in which they occurred. This will prevent plaintiffs' attorneys from moving lawsuits to cities like Kansas City or St. Louis where jury awards tend to be much higher than the rest of the state.

Next, the bill ends the practice of recognizing joint and several liability. This means that a defendant in a lawsuit will be held accountable only for the percentage or amount of damage he or she actually caused. Under the old rules, if you only caused 1 percent of the damages, you could still be forced to pay 100 percent of the cost.

Perhaps the most effective aspect of lawsuit reform measures taken up by other states is placing a limit on punitive damages. The idea of punitive damages is a way for courts to punish defendants in a noncriminal trial. They are a good way to deter future harmful behavior, but they have nothing to do with the actual harm suffered by a plaintiff. Sadly, runaway juries use punitive damages to hand out multimillion-dollar awards. These massive awards can cause insurance providers to either raise premiums for their honest customers or to simply leave the state. This bill will cap punitive damages at $250,000 or an amount equal to three times the amount of actual damages (such as medical expenses or lost wages) awarded in a case.

In addition, this version of legal reform fixes the Scott decision. That case was decided by the Missouri Court of Appeals and effectively destroyed the old cap on non-economic damages. It set up a scheme for plaintiffs to apply multiple caps to one injury. Basically, it allowed a plaintiff to treat one injury as if it were several injuries in order to get more money. This year's lawsuit reform makes it clear that each injury is entitled to only one cap, or $250,000.

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Finally, I want to talk about the issue of watershed districts. As many of you know, last year the legislature passed House Bill 1433, which dealt with watershed districts. Most of us in the House saw only the original two-page version of the bill. During floor debate, a floor substitute was moved that added 12 more pages of new policies. We did not get a chance to review these new policies, and the bill passed without our knowledge of the changes hidden in the floor substitute.

This year, Sen. Chuck Purgason has introduced legislation to repeal HB 1433. I support Purgason's bill. HB 1433 has led to a loss of local control of watershed districts and has given the state bureaucracy too much power over the daily lives of our citizens in rural areas.

HB 1433 is also one of the reasons I proposed changing the way the House of Representatives debates and passes legislation. We have ended the practice of moving floor substitutes that take the House by surprise and add mountains of hidden changes and proposals. Most often, these substitutes were written by special interest groups and lobbyists who were trying to get their pet projects through without much scrutiny. Our new rules will prevent this from happening again.

State Rep. Rod Jetton of Marble Hill, Mo., is speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives.