House Committee approves McFarland bill to update sovereign immunity limits
Rep. Fiona McFarland
A House panel agreed last week to revive a perennial effort to reform Florida’s “sovereign immunity” system that caps damage awards in suits against the government.
The House Civil Justice & Claims Subcommittee voted 16-1 to approve HB 145 by Rep. Fiona McFarland, R-Sarasota.
Sovereign immunity, the English concept that the king can do no wrong, has been adapted in U.S. law to balance America’s “somewhat allergic” aversion to monarchs and taxes, McFarland said.
“Today, our sovereigns are not kings, but our government entities,” she said. “While they’re not completely immune from accountability, our laws make it incredibly difficult for an ordinary citizen to be compensated.”
Any recovery beyond the caps requires plaintiffs to seek the Legislature’s approval through a claims bill, a process that can take years, McFarland said.
“The families have to hire attorneys and lobby us to find a bill sponsor, wait for a special masters report, and even after all that only about a quarter of the claims bills that are filed up here in Tallahassee actually make it through to passage.”
Lawmakers have been filing sovereign immunity reform proposals for the past several years.
On April 16, the House voted 103-11 to approve a previous McFarland bill, HB 301. It died in the Senate Rules Committee after a budget dispute forced the session into overtime.
HB 145 is a “measured and responsible update to a centuries-old doctrine that strengthens fairness, consistency, and accountability in our system,” McFarland said.
It would raise $200,000 per-person, and $300,000 per-incident caps on sovereign immunity claims to $500,000 and $1 million respectively. In five years, the bill would automatically increase the caps to $600,000 and $1.2 million, respectively.
Another provision would reduce the statute of limitations for bringing negligence claims from four years to two years.
“It aligns the statute of limitations so that victims would have the same amount of time to bring a claim against a government entity as they would against a private entity,” McFarland said.
The bill would also authorize local governments to settle claims above the caps without seeking legislative approval, and bar insurance companies from tying payments to the passage of a claims bill. McFarland and other supporters stress that the caps haven’t been revised since 2010.
Miami civil trial attorney Eric Tinstman, testifying for the Florida Justice Association, thanked McFarland for her “persistence.”
“I’m back, and you’ve heard me say this before,” Tinstman told the subcommittee, “that the king can do no wrong is about the most un-American statement I’ve ever heard.”
Tinstman, who coaches a youth soccer team, said he recently watched a player’s grandmother suffer a serious headwound after tripping over a 4-inch protrusion in an uneven sidewalk.
“That grandma who cracked her head open just wanted to watch her granddaughter in a soccer match,” he said. “If you have enough money to pay for lobbyists, you have enough money to pay for fixing sidewalks. Let’s make Florida safer, let’s pass this bill.”
Opponents with the Florida Association of Counties, the Florida League of Cities, and the Panhandle Area Education Consortium, warned that the bill would send liability premiums skyrocketing and force local governments to cut services.
South Daytona City Councilman Brandon Young said his community of 14,000 residents could be one of them.
South Daytona recently experienced a 42% increase in its liability premiums, without experiencing a corresponding increase in lawsuits, Young said. The city just climbed out of debt after recovering from recent hurricanes, he said, but the result is a “bare bones” budget.
“When people are seriously harmed by government mistakes, they do deserve compensation,” he said. “How do we do it without unintentionally harming the broader communities in which we serve?”
Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Daniel Perez are proposing to eliminate or roll back property taxes, the primary source of income for local governments, Young noted.
“I’m not sure where we will land in all of this,” he said.
Bob Harris, speaking on behalf of the Panhandle Area Education Consortium, said the rural schools he represents can’t afford to see their liability premiums climb any higher.
Authorizing local governments to negotiate settlements that exceed the caps would create a “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow syndrome,” and encourage meritless claims, he said.
Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville, suggested that the caps could be adjusted as the bill progresses through the process. HB 145 heads next to the Budget Committee, then Judiciary, before reaching the floor.
But it’s only fair to increase the caps after 15 years, he said.
“Someone has to pay the bill for these compensatory damages, the only issue is who that should be,” Black said. “It could be those who made the mess, or it could be the person or party that has been injured.”
In her closing remarks, McFarland noted that local governments cited the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Great Recession, to oppose previous reform attempts.
“I don’t know when the right time will be,” she said. “I can’t imagine the circumstances.”
