Another view of tort reform

Another view of tort reform

The need for tort reform — the alleged benefit of limiting the amount that a jury could award the plaintiff in a lawsuit — drove the politics of Ohio for nearly a decade.

Proponents, largely Republicans, argued that runaway jury awards were driving up the cost of doing business in the state and, especially, forcing doctors to leave Ohio to practice in states that had lawsuit limits and lower medical malpractice premiums. Opponents, largely Democrats, argued that the jury system wasn’t broken in Ohio and that tort reform would not bring lower insurance premiums.

The Democrats lost the argument, and, along with it, the party lost any semblance of power on the Ohio Supreme Court. After the court overturned the first legislative attempt at tort reform, races for Ohio justices became expensive, tough and, largely, won by Republicans pledged to support tort reform the next time a case came before the court.

Early findings

Tort reform may be headed back into the political arena after a study by the Associated Press. It showed that medical malpractice rates continued to increase in the years immediately after tort reform was approved in 2003 and have only now begun to level off. Further, Ohio has fewer doctors practicing in specialty areas today — especially obstetrics and gynecology — than it did five years ago.

In the years that the tort reform debate raged, opponents of limits on jury awards enjoyed playing one trump card in any debate. They challenged proponents to cite one case in which an insurance company pledged that it would reduce their rates if tort reform were enacted. None was ever produced.

Given that insurance companies live and die by projected costs, it would have seemed that one of them would have been able to do the math. If jury verdicts were averaging $3.5 million nationally and Ohio were going to cap limits on pain and suffering in medical malpractice cases at $350,000, how much would insurance companies save? How much of that could be used to reduce rates?

So far, the answer to the second question is, very little.

Time to start

Five years may not be enough of a window to provide an accurate view of the effect limiting awards would have. Lawsuits drag out for years. And one of the presumed benefits of limits was that it would reduce the number of lawsuits and the high cost of litigating them if the potential for multimillion-dollar payouts were reduced.

But certainly, the five-year mark is a good time to begin asking questions and analyzing data.

Are fewer suits being filed, are jury awards smaller, are insurance costs lower? If so, why haven’t premiums been reduced accordingly? Why are there fewer baby doctors in Ohio today than when the state was being described as a mecca for greedy lawyers and for patients/plaintiffs with dollar signs in their eyes?