Comprehensive Tort Reform – H.B. 837

| July 10, 2023

Florida – 2023

Provides uniform standards to assist juries in calculating the accurate value of medical damages in personal injury or wrongful death actions and addresses letters or protection.

Changes Florida’s comparative negligence system from a pure comparative negligence system to a modified system, except for medical negligence cases, so that a plaintiff who is more at fault for his or her own injuries than the defendant may not generally recover damages from the defendant.

Modifies Florida’s “bad faith” framework to:

Allow an insurer to avoid third-party bad faith liability if the insurer tenders the policy limits or the amount demanded by the claimant within 120 days after receiving actual notice of the claim.
Clarify that negligence alone is not enough to demonstrate bad faith.
Require a claimant to act in good faith with respect to furnishing information, making demands, setting deadlines, and attempting to settle the insurance claim.
Allow an insurer, when there are multiple claimants in a single action, to limit the insurer’s bad faith liability by paying the total amount of the policy limits at the outset.

Provides that a contingency fee multiplier for an attorney fee award is appropriate only in a rare and exceptional circumstance, adopting the federal standard.

Provides that Florida’s one-way attorney fee provisions for insurance cases apply in limited situations.

Requires the trier of fact in certain negligent security actions to consider the fault of all persons who contributed to the injury, establishes a presumption against negligent security liability in specified situations, and expands immunity for a property owner defending a lawsuit against a criminal actor who is injured on the property.

Reduces the statute of limitations for general negligence cases from 4 years to 2 years.