re: Tort reform in Louisiana - you can only choose 3

Caveat: I'm an insurance defense attorney.

1) Cap on general damages is not smart. Sometimes people are legitimately hurt and capping damages doesn't make them whole.

2) Yes. This is one of the major problems that needs to be addressed. If it goes into a trust, the plaintiff doesn't have the incentive to claim they are going to get multiple future surgeries. However, the missing aspect of the trust is that the plaintiff attorney still has an incentive to work up that aspect of the claim. If future medicals were exempt from the 40% attorneys fees and the money went into a trust, it could alleviate a lot of the bogus future medical claims.

3) This would only work if the plaintiff attorney is on the hook for the fees. Chances a plaintiff could afford what it costs for a defendant to go trial is less than .001%.

4) No one outside of the legal system understands how bad the judges have become. At one point, As made professors, Bs made judges, and Cs made money. Now, As make professors, Bs make decent money, Cs make "drive a Ferrari" money, and Ds and Fs run for judge. It's a pay raise for solo practitioners and bad lawyers, so those are the attorneys who run for judge.

There are a few options that make sense, but appointed judges would fix a lot of the issues. Presumably the governor or a board of some sort would make sure the judges were competent and intelligent. It would also prevent the plaintiffs bar from donating money to future judges during election season.

Would also like to see a division of the court system into civil and criminal. This would allow attorneys who do civil law to run or be appointed for a civil seat. Would also prevent civil attorneys from having to try and explain complex civil law issues to a judge who has only handled criminal cases.

5-8) Wouldn't make a dent

9) Would be great if it was practical, but I'm not sure it is. Too many people see an accident as a payday, irrespective of whether they are actually injured. This is the result of having billboards and commercials all over the place telling people that an accident is a payday. You'd have to pull down billboards and commercials and wait a decade before that mentality subsided.

10) Don't think this would be that impactful outside of the rare cases that go to trial and I don't know that it would be a noticeable change.

11-12) Need to go together. If you bump out prescriptive period, plaintiff attorneys would still file suit to determine the limits because they can't risk paying for treatment when the limits won't cover that treatment. Should also be a mechanism to allow the defendant to file the suit to start discovery, which could prevent spoliation issues.

13) See above. Would only work if the attorney was on the hook.


Not mentioned but should have been:

14) The plaintiffs bar is too tied in with the doctors where they send their clients to treat. It doesn't matter what information you show these doctors, they will almost always relate the treatment to the accident. They also recommend future treatment that almost never occurs. There are a few ways of slowly breaking up this relationship.

A) Eliminate post-settlement discounts. I'm not sure how enforcement would work in practice.

B) Limit the amount of specials that can be boarded at trial. These doctors are charging exorbitant amounts for procedures, many of which are written off with insurance, workers comp, or discounts to attorneys. These high figures increase the dollar figures at trial, even though they will never be paid. It provides incentives to doctors to "charge" way more than they are willing to accept.

C) Force the doctors to accept health insurance or worlers' comp when available.

15) Rewrite 9:2800.27. It's poorly written, creates a ton of unintended consequences, and does not account for some of the main reasons why insurance is out of control.

16) Enforce uniformity with all the judges. Every judge runs their court differently, and sometimes it's years to get a trial date. It should be similar to federal court where the dockets move faster and are more consistent.