re: Tort reformers--welcome to your week of jury duty...

Won’t JBE just veto tort reform? I heard he wants the extra year for SOL, does Louisiana allow line item vetoing?

My wife and I have $2.25M in liability and UM, mostly for the UM. I’m very garnishable if I had lower limits and got hit with an excess, but I really carry the high limits for the reciprocal UM knowing what I do about Louisiana drivers and how many don’t have insurance or have minimum limits.

It’s not the way I practice, but from reading the defense attorneys here, apparently the new thing is to drum up sham future medicals so I guess the argument would be if you have higher limits then that gives the unscrupulous plaintiffs attorney more room to work with.

250 auto liability, 2 million umbrella with UM

I don’t know what he’s going to do. There is abuse from the plaintiff’s bar that needed to be reigned in. What’s happened though is LABI knows the general public is tired of Gordon on trucks and they’ve taken this opportunity to swing for the fences and try to get everything they ever wanted with direct action and collateral source.

A clean 2 year prescription for lowering the threshold to $10,000 would have been a perfect compromise and made everyone a little happy but also a little feeling they left something on the table.

And I know line item veto is for budgets; I’m not sure he can do that with substantive law. Pretty sure he has to either sign it or veto it outright. One of those fancy LSU or Tulane lawyers can correct me if I’m wrong

Yeah, the umbrella company mandated we have at least 250,000

We had 100,000 and would have been responsible for dollar 100,001 to 250,000 had we not changed it.

$250/month with Safeco for the auto liability and $50 with Chubb for the excess

He can ask for any and all policies once suit has been filed and they’ll need to be disclosed.

So it's dumb for me to have a million in auto liability and 500k for my wife instead of 250k for both autos and an umbrella for a million or more, right? The umbrella is broader in coverage and covers more household members and types of incidents.

What PI attorney is going to litigate a case, before a jury, for $10,000?

For that matter, how many $60K cases are tried before a jury, currently, in LA?

I can't imagine you are going to have much of an increase in cases that make it to a jury trial, because it's not cost-effective for the PI attorney.

Look, I get it. PI attorneys (the ones who advertise and run mills) are scumbags, and the insurance companies don't make money by paying out claims.

But the insurance companies are cheapskates in the other 49 states as well, and somehow, it doesn't result in more problems or higher premiums.

As far as phasing in one step at a time... most of us don't want to wait 20 years for relief. What if... the steps work best when they are implemented together?

It's not like we are testing a vaccine here... we have 49 states worth of evidence, plus our own, in how different rules have different results. Pick a set of rules from another state - perhaps Texas - and just apply that 100 percent to LA.

UM covers your bills, but does it act like long term disability insurance?

I have a few friends who are big PI attorneys. They have told me on more than one occasion the chances of you ever being garnished are slim to none of you have a policy and umbrella at higher thresholds. The likelihood they go after the policy holder is nill if there is broad insurance coverage.

The example one used is if you wreck someone then get out with a baseball bat and beat them in their seat- if somehow you avoid prosecution- you could be garnished. Seems extreme but I think he was trying to prove a point.