Have you been forced to pay more than your fair share as a defendant in a lawsuit or settled to protect yourself from paying a huge damage award? Has your cost-of-business increased because of lawsuits or lawsuit threats? If so, the FICPA would like to hear from you.

Help us convince the Florida Legislature to make it difficult for personal injury lawyers to target your business for unjust damage awards.

The FICPA has partnered with the Florida Justice Reform Institute, to advocate legislation that ensures lawsuit defendants are responsible only for a prorated amount of economic damages based on a jury-determined fault percentage, under which a defendant who is 15 percent at fault for an accident would pay 15 percent of the economic damages awarded regardless of the judgment size.

Currently, defendants can be held liable for up to $2 million more than their share of economic damages under the “deep pocket” rule of joint and several liability in some civil actions. This allows plaintiffs to recover excessive damages from one of multiple defendants even if that defendant is the least responsible and the plaintiff partially is to blame. Abolishing joint and several liability would reduce the ability of plaintiffs and attorneys to make people or businesses pay for economic damages they did not cause.

If you are willing to talk to legislators or the media about your lawsuit experience, please contact the FICPA Governmental Affairs department at govaffairs@ficpa.org.

If you have any questions about the FAIR amendments update or FICPA lawsuit-reform partnership, please contact FICPA Director of Governmental Affairs Jennifer J. Green, CAE, (800) 342-3197 (within Florida only) or (850) 224-2727, Ext. 201 or e-mail govaffairs@ficpa.org.