JACKSON - Trial lawyers in Mississippi say all they've done is help victims of poor health care and harmful products and insist they've been wrongly vilified in the state's ongoing tort reform debate.
In sometimes humorous, sometimes contentious testimony Wednesday before a joint legislative committee, leaders of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association had their turn to discuss the state's insurance industry and reasons for rising premiums in recent years.
The two-day hearing at the state Capitol, which included more than 20 witnesses, ended Wednesday.
"I presume since we've been invited to speak on the issue of health insurance and professional premiums, there's some implication that the civil justice system is playing a part in that," said Lance L. Stevens of Jackson, a past president of the trial lawyers group. "I am here to refute that point resoundingly," he said.
Representatives of business and medical organizations earlier told members of the House and Senate insurance committees the state's litigious climate and reputation for massive jury awards are the main causes for skyrocketing premiums and limited coverage and health care choices.
Tort reform - changing the state's civil justice laws - is expected to be a hot issue in the 2002 legislative session that begins Jan. 8.
Organizations on both sides already have bought newspaper advertisements touting their causes. They're also sure to launch expensive lobbying campaigns in the Legislature.
Stevens said blaming trial lawyers for an insurance crisis is nonsense. The notion that the state's legal system is flawed is simply a perception created by media reports, "fairy tales and anecdotes," he said. Stevens cited statistics from the National Practitioner's Databank that showed the amount paid out for malpractice claims in Mississippi in 2000 was 17 percent below the national average.
He said the reason for rising rates was linked not to the legal profession but to the financial markets.
"The root cause is the stock market," Stevens said. "The stock market went down last year. The investment income of insurance companies is not what it used to be. Rates have to go up."
Insurance Commissioner George Dale has said poor investment performances by insurance companies is one of the causes for significantly higher premiums, in addition to the state's legal climate, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and bad underwriting decisions.
Ron Aldridge, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said a statewide survey of small business owners this year indicated that rising health insurance premiums and a fear of lawsuits were their top two concerns.
Aldridge gave the committee more than a dozen recommendations for tort reform. Among them were:
-Capping non-economic and punitive damages in civil suits at fair and reasonable levels.
-Making liability in a lawsuit commensurate with responsibility.
-Establishing a product liability standard that protects small retail businesses from lawsuits involving products they don't make.
Aldridge said Mississippi's whopping verdicts eventually "roll downhill and become a lawsuit tax" for everyone in the form of higher costs for products and services.
He said tort reform in Texas has resulted in more than $2 billion in savings for residents since 1996 because of reductions in liability insurance rates.
Stevens and his colleagues said there was no evidence that any company would reduce rates in Mississippi if tort reform was passed.
Dr. Hugh Gamble of Greenville, president of the Mississippi State Medical Association, has said changes to the laws wouldn't cause rates to go down, but they would stabilize the market.
If nothing is done, Gamble told lawmakers, doctors will continue to limit their practices or leave the state.
During the hearings, representatives of the nursing home, manufacturing and hospital industries also told lawmakers of the hardships they're facing because of increasing insurance premiums.
David Baria, a Jackson lawyer who spoke along with Stevens, said nursing homes could lower their insurance rates by increasing and better training their staffs.
