COLUMBUS Additions proposed to obesity bill

The Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers is watching the bill.
By JEFF ORTEGA
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
COLUMBUS -- State lawmakers are considering retooling a bill intended to provide civil immunity to food-processing companies to include other civil-litigation reforms, a move drawing scrutiny by trial-lawyer advocates.
The Ohio House Civil and Commercial Law Committee had approved the bill sponsored by state Rep. Bob Gibbs, a Lakeville Republican, but pulled it back earlier this week to add other so-called "tort reform" provisions to it.
"It does fit," Gibbs said Thursday of the proposed additions. "It's all tort-related."
Gibbs' bill would grant civil-liability immunity to restaurants, grocers and other food-processing businesses, amid fears from some of lawsuits from those who might claim such businesses help cause obesity.
But the proposed additions to the bill, which Gibbs said still have to be inserted into the measure, would prohibit the bringing of a wrongful-death action if the decedent already had received a settlement from the business and would protect property owners next to recreational trails from being liable for trail users.
Other matters
Other provisions lawmakers are thinking of putting into the so-called obesity bill are those that would say that failure to use a seat belt in motor vehicles might be used in civil trials as evidence of contributory fault and those that would instruct juries about the tax implications of damage awards.
The Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers is closely monitoring the proposed changes.
"We definitely have some concerns with it," said Richard Mason, the academy's executive director. Academy officials said they were concerned with proposed changes related to wrongful death cases and also the seat-belt provisions.
Gibbs said he was notified by Republican House leaders that they believed his bill might be an appropriate measure to move some provisions contained in a civil-litigation reform measure pending in the House Judiciary Committee that would cap jury awards in personal-injury lawsuits.
That bill, sponsored by state Sen. Steve Stivers, a Columbus Republican, has already passed the Senate.
Another tort-reform bill in the Legislature would limit liability in asbestos-related claims. That bill, sponsored by state Rep. W. Scott Oelslager, a Canton Republican, has passed the Ohio House and is pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The House Civil and Commercial Law Committee is expected to vote again on Gibbs' bill next month.