TORT REFORM IN ALABAMA
May 5, 1999
May 15, 1999
Weekend Edition
National Public Radio (transcript)
Note Copyright Warning:
Copyright 1999 National Public Radio (R). All rights reserved. No quotes
from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution
to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole
or in part without prior written permission. For further information,
please contact NPR's Permissions Coordinator at (202) 414-2000.
National Public Radio (NPR)
Tort Reform in Alabama
Anchor: Scott Simon
Reporter: Debbie Elliott
SCOTT SIMON, host:
The US civil justice system, victimhood can sometime exact a prohibitive
cost. State legislatures around the country are attempting to rein in
civil awards. Florida lawmakers recently passed the most sweeping court
reforms in that state's history. In Alabama, the issue catapulted
to the forefront this week after a $ 581 million jury verdict was delivered.
NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT reporting:
Alabama already had a reputation as the lawsuit lotto state where juries
are likely to return multimillion dollar punitive damage awards. The state's
most notorious high jury verdict came in 1992 when a Birmingham jury awarded
$ 4 million to a doctor who sued BMW for not telling him about a touch-up
paint job on his new car. In 1996, the US Supreme Court struck down that
verdict as grossly excessive.
Now a jury in rural Hale County, Alabama, has ordered a finance company
to pay a Greensboro family a record $ 581 million for a $ 1,200 overcharge
on a credit agreement to purchase two satellite dishes. The verdict breathed
new life into a package of tort reform bills pushed by the state's
business community.
Mr. JOHN McMILLAN (Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee): I don't
think there's any doubt at all that that was a catalyst for moving
our legislation to the floor.
ELLIOTT: John McMillan is with the Alabama Civil Justice Reform Committee.
Mr. McMILLAN: How can anybody say we don't have a problem. You know,
that's been one of the big things. Even with some of the trial lawyer
friends in the state Senate has been, Well, you know, we just don't
have a problem.' And this is so outrageous and absurd that argument
won't hold water for anybody to make.
ELLIOTT: For more than a decade, the battle over tort reform has been
wedged between two of Alabama's most powerful interest groups: trial
lawyers and business. Both sides have contributed heavily to Supreme Court
and legislative races. In 1987, the Legislature passed a tort reform package,
but it was struck down by the Alabama Supreme Court. Since then, similar
measures have been stalled in the state Senate by allies of plaintiffs'
lawyers. But this year, the state Senate is led by Steve Windom, the first
Republican lieutenant governor in Alabama since Reconstruction. Windom's
campaign was backed by business interests and he promised that tort reform
would get a hearing, but that hearing almost didn't come. It was the
reaction to last week's record verdict that finally brought business
interests and plaintiffs' attorneys to the negotiating table. The
lawyers say they wanted to be part of the solution, according to Greg
Breedlove, president of the Alabama Trial Lawyers Association. Breedlove
says that doesn't mean the group agrees that Alabama's civil justice
system is out of control.
Mr. GREG BREEDLOVE (President, Alabama Trial Lawyers Association): We
don't really think that any of these tort reform measures are needed,
when you consider that the argument is always that these tort reform bills
are needed just to promote business in Alabama, because business has never
been better than it is right now.
ELLIOTT: The trial lawyers' group and consumer advocates contend large
punitive damage awards serve a purpose in this state by keeping dangerous
products off the market and protecting the public from corporate greed.
Breedlove says consumers in Alabama have no chance for justice except
through the civil jury system.
Mr. BREEDLOVE: The jury is the consumer protection laws that we have.
Our state has the poorest consumer protection laws of any state in the country.
ELLIOTT: Many of Alabama's large jury verdicts have come from the
state's poorer, rural counties where there's not much of a corporate
presence. High punitive damages like the recent Hale County verdict send
a message, says Montgomery attorney Jere Beasley whose firm represented
the plaintiffs.
Mr. JERE BEASLEY (Attorney): I think that jury was simply trying to tell
the world that, Look, we are tired of people coming into Alabama, taking
advantage of low-income, underprivileged, oftentimes undereducated persons.'
ELLIOTT: But businesses say the message gets muddled when the damages
are disproportionate to the injury. In the satellite dish case, jurors
awarded $ 581 million to punish a $ 1,200 overcharge. American Tort Reform
Association president Sherman Joyce says it's those kinds of verdicts
that earned Alabama the nickname tort hell.'
Mr. SHERMAN JOYCE (President, American Tort Reform Association): Well,
Alabama's had a series of cases where what's been most remarkable
is with respect to punitive damages, is the relationship or the lack of
relationship between the size of the punitive damage verdict and the alleged
underlying harm. And I think that's what really got attention in this
satellite dish case.
ELLIOTT: Joyce says at least 30 states have changed their civil justice
laws. About a dozen have passed sweeping tort reform legislation limiting
punitive damage awards and setting new legal standards for civil lawsuits.
Late this week, the Alabama Senate approved three tort reform measures.
The bills would restrict where lawsuits can be filed, make it harder to
file class-action lawsuits and cap punitive damage awards. Under that
bill, the Hale County verdict would have been limited to $ 2.9 million.