ISSUE: Should Florida’s tort laws reflect payment to a plaintiff for actual, true medical bills or should the practice of making medical care claims based on inflated bills be continued.

DISCUSSION: Through complicated procedures in personal damage suits, plaintiffs can claim and are awarded damages based on inflated costs for procedures which are not based on the actual amount paid by the plaintiff or on the plaintiff’s behalf. The jury is not allowed to know the true amount. This results in inflated awards for medical claims to the plaintiff and increased attorney fees, since personal injury attorney fees are set as a percentage of the dollar amount of the judgment. The practice of allowing these inflated or untrue damages increases the cost of personal injury suits without a commensurate true benefit to the injured party. Once again, fairness and justice are not part of the suit.

POSITION: The Florida Retail Federation believes that injured parties should recover their true costs based on real expenses, not phantom numbers. The Federation supports corrective legislation to help restore truthful damage verdicts in personal injury lawsuits.

RELATED BILLS
HB 1069 Truth in Damages,Metz
SB 1328 Truth in Damages, Hays