First, a House Judiciary subcommittee last week passed two comprehensive legal reform bills with little debate. Then on the same day, the full committee approved the measures, again with little in-depth debate. The House is expected to spend today considering the measures.
If approved by the full General Assembly, they dramatically would shift people's abilities in South Carolina to recover damages in civil court for wrongs, such as negligence, medical malpractice and bodily injury. For the first time, they generally would cap the damages people could receive for negligence and other wrongs at $2 million, although juries could make higher awards to punish folks who have done really bad things.
Unexpectedly quick movement on the bills during the opening week of the General Assembly came after the word apparently went out from the House GOP leadership: "Move ahead with lightning speed on tort reform so we don't have to deal with it and get bogged down with it this year. Send it to the Senate so it can be blamed if the General Assembly doesn't pass tort reform this year."
But that strategy doesn't sit well with Senate leader Glenn McConnell, the Charleston Republican who also chairs the Judiciary Committee. For months, his staff has been doing research on tort reform ideas.
"We are not going to let the House wholesale dump the question of tort reform on us and make it appear to the people of South Carolina that we're holding it up and won't deal with it," he said.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Harrison, R-Columbia, said committee members met a half dozen times over the summer and fall in public hearings to discuss components of tort reform. At the meetings, there was ample input from doctors, industry and lawyers, he said.
"We worked on this bill over five months of public hearings and a great deal of testimony," Harrison said. "That's not slamming a bill through."
He said the rush to get the bill to the Senate would give it ample time to consider it and likely allow some action on tort reform to occur this year. If the House waited too long, the Senate would complain the House didn't give it enough time, he added.
"The way it works is we pass it and send it to them," Harrison said.
But former House Democratic Leader Doug Jennings of Bennettsville complained the process has been rushed to benefit businesses and doctors, who face increasing medical malpractice insurance costs (even though South Carolina has some of the lowest rates in the nation).
"This has been an industry-driven effort by the insurance industry and the (state) Chamber of Commerce," said Jennings, a lawyer. "There's been little input from victims of other people's negligence."
What worries Jennings and many trial lawyers is they believe so-called tort reform isn't needed because South Carolina's system that protects the rights of victims generally works well.
For example, juries don't award billion-dollar verdicts in South Carolina. A 2003 review of verdicts by South Carolina Lawyer's Weekly showed only nine verdicts exceeded $1 million -- and only three were for more than $10 million:
Runaway lawsuit verdicts aren't a problem in South Carolina, Jennings said, because state law allows judges to sit as the 13th juror. If a judge believes a jury has been unreasonable in awarding a verdict, he has the discretion to cut the verdict to make it fairer, as suggested in the Berkeley County case above.
More than anything, the rush to fix a tort system that may not be broken will take away the rights of juries to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, he said.
"When you try to take a cookie-cutter approach, you take out of the jury's hands the ability to evaluate each case based upon its specific facts."
When victims are hurt by negligent actions, juries should make decisions, not state lawmakers. Otherwise, lawmakers are taking away people's freedoms in favor of big business. Aren't Republicans supposed to be all about protecting freedoms, not trampling on them?