Phantom Damages & Letters of Protection
Allows a jury to consider not only “amounts charged” but also amounts “actually necessary to satisfy such charges” under public or private health insurance that covers the plaintiff, including workers’ compensation.
Provides that certain information is “relevant and discoverable,” including the letters or protection agreement, an itemized list of the medical services provided with specific charges and billing codes, the name and dollar amount of any portion of the account receivable sold to a third party, and the identity of any individual who referred the plaintiff to the provider for treatment.
Jury Anchoring Reform
Amends a Georgia statute that broadly authorizes lawyers to argue the monetary value of pain and suffering to the jury. Permits such arguments when “rationally related to the evidence of noneconomic damages” and prohibits “reference[s] to objects or values having no rational connection to the facts proved by the evidence.” This change is intended to bar “anchoring” tactics in which attorneys, for example, refer to how much a professional sports player is paid, or the value of art or some other object, to set a baseline for an extraordinary noneconomic damage award. Requires an attorney who suggests a value for noneconomic damages in a closing argument to have done so in the opening argument in the same amount.
Seatbelt Non-Use Admissibility
Eliminates a statutory “gag rule” and permits a factfinder to consider seatbelt nonuse when evaluating issues such as negligence, comparative negligence, causation, assumption of risk, or apportionment of fault, or for any other purpose. However, a court has discretion to exclude seatbelt non-use evidence if its probative value is outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.
Trial Procedure Reform
Permits a defendant to file a motion to dismiss in lieu of an answer. Discovery is stayed until the court rules on the motion (except that if the court has not ruled within 90 days, a party can move the court, for good cause, to modify or end the stay). If the court denies the motion to dismiss or indicates that it will not rule until trial, the defendant must file an answer within 15 days.
Permits a party to elect to have the court conduct a trial in two phases. In the first phase, a jury will determine liability and allocation of fault. If the jury finds liability, in the second phase, the same jury will decide the plaintiff’s compensatory damages. If necessary, the court would conduct a third phase to consider punitive damages. During each phase, admissible evidence would be limited to the issues before the court. A court can reject an election to bifurcate in cases in which the amount in controversy is less than $150,000 and in cases alleging injuries from sexual offenses.
Limits a plaintiff’s ability to dismiss an action without order or permission of the court, without prejudice, to within 60 days of a defendant filing its answer. If a plaintiff previously dismissed an action based on the same claim, dismissal operates as an adjudication upon the merits.
Premises Liability
Provides that wrongful conduct by a third party is “reasonably foreseeable” only when a premises owner had “particularized warning of imminent wrongful conduct by a third person” or reasonably should have known that this wrongful conduct would occur based on actual knowledge of prior occurrences of substantially similar wrongful conduct on the premise, the adjacent premises, or within 500 yards of the premises, or by a third party who the defendant knew or should have known would be on the premises.
Provides that a premises owner can be held liable only if the wrongful conduct by a third person was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of that person exploiting a specific physical condition of the premises known to the owner or occupier, which created a reasonably foreseeable risk of wrongful conduct on the premises that was substantially greater than the general risk of wrongful conduct in the surrounding area. In addition, the injury must be a proximate cause of a premises owner’s failure to exercise ordinary care to remedy or mitigate a specific, known physical condition of the premises and otherwise keep the premises safe from such wrongful conduct.
Provides for liability to licensees in more limited circumstances than invitees (as above).
Precludes liability for negligent security to a trespasser, a person who was not injured on the owner’s property, a tenant or guest of a tenant who was subject to eviction proceedings, a person that came on the property for the purpose of committing certain crimes, a person injured in a single-family residence, or when the premises owner made a reasonable effort to alert law enforcement to a particular warning of imminent wrongful conduct.
Requires a jury to apportion fault in a negligent security action among the (1) owner or occupier; (2) any third person whose wrongful conduct caused the injury (the perpetrators of the crime); and (3) any other responsible person. The trial court must set aside a verdict that fails to apportion a reasonable degree of fault to the perpetrator of the crime and grant a new trial. Provides a rebuttable presumption that an apportionment of fault is unreasonable if the total percentage of fault apportioned to all perpetrators is less than the total percentage of fault assigned to all owners or occupiers, security contractors, and other persons who did not engage in the wrongful conduct.
