BATON ROUGE - Governor John Bel Edwards has signed a compromise tort-reform bill - the Civil Justice Reform Act of 2020 - and now proponents are optimistic that more reform can be advanced in future sessions.
The legislation aims to encourage more reasonable legal settlements by lowering the monetary threshold needed for a civil jury trial from the current $50,000 to $10,000; by ending the state ban on allowing jurors to hear evidence about plaintiffs’ use of seat belts in auto insurance lawsuits; and by defining medical damages as the amount actually paid to the injured party, rather than an insurer’s “sticker price.”
Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI) CEO Stephen Waguespack said the reform package will help bring competition back to the state's insurance markets and provide workers and job creators with affordable insurance options.
He congratulated the "hard work of a diverse coalition of stakeholders and a dedicated, bipartisan group of legislators who understood the urgent need for common-sense legal reform" for getting HB57 across the finish line.
"While this is the culmination of many years of work for LABI and the entire business community, we look forward to working with the Governor and the Legislature in future sessions to bring more reforms that will improve our poor legal climate to the table," Waguespack said. "Our work has only just begun.”