There’s no “I” in team. So said legislative leaders in both South Carolina and Georgia, the two most recent states to adopt comprehensive civil justice reform.

 

Although each state took a different approach to the promotion of their respective legislative packages, key efforts to streamline the message and garner public support demonstrate the effectiveness of public-business teamwork.

 

Rewind two years. The Georgia General Assembly, led by trial lawyer Gov. Roy Barnes (D), tabled medical malpractice reform without public debate. South Carolina’s legislature, equally packed with trial lawyers, dismissed several attempts to reform the state’s joint and several liability and venue rules. Despite valiant efforts by medical and business organizations, the political winds blew harshly against reasoned reform.

 

As a result, the two neighboring states shared a chilly business climate. In its annual report, Judicial Hellholes® 2004, the American Tort Reform Foundation awarded an embarrassing “third worst” to South Carolina’s Hampton County. In the two previous years’ reports, the same county received a dishonorable mention. Overall, the state ranked as the eleventh-worst civil justice system in the nation.

 

In a similar study, the Harris Poll 2003 State Liability Systems Ranking Study ranked Georgia 39th among all states for legal fairness and efficiency, which considered issues like treatment of defendants, compatibility with other state’s legal procedures, and judicial competence. In 2002, the same study ranked Georgia 23rd among the states. For both states, a runaway civil justice system was reaching a crisis stage.

 

Enter today’s political environment. Pro-business, pro-consumer Governors in Georgia and South Carolina made reform a top priority. New and veteran legislative leadership in both states, armed with statistics and anecdotes from the business and medical communities, framed thematic legislation to address legal and procedural issues.

 

Pro-reform organizations, like South Carolinians for Tort Reform (SCTR) and Georgia’s Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), put tangible resources behind legislative and grassroots efforts to successfully promote the legislation.

 

The “story behind the story,” however, reveals noteworthy similarities and differences in the means to the end in both states.

 

In Georgia, the new Republican majorities were anxious to consider so-called “business” civil justice reform and to revisit past attempts at medical liability reform. In the two previous legislative sessions, medical reform advocates and trial lawyers clashed in “all-or-nothing” battles that left lawmakers with no room for compromise. During this same period, no effort was made to introduce non-medical civil justice reforms, leaving most Georgians with the impression that tort reform meant “doctors vs. lawyers.”

Sensing a political opening, Gov. Sonny Perdue and his allies in the state Senate pre-filed an omnibus civil justice reform bill (SB 3), which covered substantive procedural reform (venue, elimination of joint and several liability, offer of judgment, and expert witness standards) as well as medical malpractice liability caps and adjustment of liability standards for emergency room physicians. The concept was to gather all allies for a single fight and win. Meanwhile, new House Speaker Glenn Richardson was preparing multiple bills covering each of the issues in the omnibus bill in the event that one or more provisions of the Senate’s bill met with fatal resistance. After an overwhelming affirmation of the Senate bill, the House adopted it, making slight modifications.

 

In South Carolina, Gov. Mark Sanford (right) and his allies were determined to push two separate legislative packages, one for business and general reform (H. 3008), and one for medical reform (S. 83). Based on recommendations from a panel of fifty policy leaders appointed by Gov. Sanford to investigate ways to improve the state’s business environment, the “Contract for Change” was fashioned, including not only civil justice reform measures, but also state income tax cuts and job creation efforts. Key civil justice components of Sanford’s package included venue reform, abolishing joint and several liability, statute of repose reform, sanctions to discourage frivolous lawsuits, and modest limits on medical malpractice non-economic damages.

 

Backing Gov. Sanford’s Contract for Change, SCTR coordinated grassroots and lobbying efforts to convince the state that civil justice reform was needed. Like their counterparts in Georgia, SCTR focused on bread-and-butter issues to link civil justice reform with everyday citizens. Pointing out that jobs, access to health care, and the cost of products and services depend on civil justice reform, the advocacy-legislator alliance prompted what has been described as “one of the most effective expressions of opinion in favor of an issue in our state’s history,” said Cam Crawford, SCTR executive director.

 

Georgia’s efforts were less coordinated, but equally effective. Without the benefit of a single identifiable entity to coordinate message outreach, four organizations nevertheless stepped forward to promote the omnibus package. “For the first time in recent memory, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, SLF, the Medical Association of Georgia, and the Georgia Hospital Association put aside parochial differences to support the reasonable reforms,” said Georgia group liaison Eric Dial, president of Atlanta-based Dial Strategic Consulting.

 

Keeping in mind that promoting the state’s economic vitality without limiting court access for legitimate cases was the goal, the groups allied around the phrase “litigation tax cut.” The trial lawyers attacked the bill in a statewide television ad campaign and, for the first time, the reformers fought back with aggressive paid and earned media of their own. As in South Carolina, Georgia’s reformers hammered the point that frivolous lawsuits cost the average family of four between $2,000 and $3,500 annually in more expensive products and services.

 

A key to the successes in both states is the ongoing support of national organizations like American Justice Partnership (AJP) and the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA). Bringing to bear national policy support and resources used effectively for reform in states like Mississippi, Alabama and Texas, AJP demonstrated that large corporations, business associations, and their advocacy allies will step forward to make their support for reform known to lawmakers.

 

Conditioned over decades by trial lawyer-friendly legislatures in both states, business leaders were reluctant to voice substantive support or opposition to measures that directly impacted jobs and the economy. AJP’s unwavering message, as demonstrated by AJP president Dan Pero’s (pictured left) regular presence in both states, is that businesses have a bottom-line responsibility to protect and expand their jobs , as well as quality of life for their state. Emboldened by the successes in both states, business leaders and their advocacy allies now have a basic blueprint for galvanizing support for pro-business reforms in the future.

 

© 2005 Todd Young

 

Read Todd's recent column, Enacting Civil Justice Reform in Georgia, an insider's look at how the campaign for legal reform succeeded.