A bill that would revamp the state’s wrongful death statutes to allow more lawsuits stemming from medical malpractice is moving through the committee process in the Florida Legislature.
The House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee voted unanimously Wednesday to approve HB 6017. The vote followed a Tuesday evening 9-2 vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve SB 734.
The legislation heads to the House Judiciary Committee next but has no additional committee references in that chamber, while the Senate version will head to the Appropriations Committee on Health and Human Services and the Rules Committee.
When it comes to wrongful deaths stemming from medical malpractice claims, parents of single, childless, adult children cannot sue for noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering. Additionally, adults (defined as 25 or older) cannot pursue wrongful death claims for parents who die from medical malpractice.
This is in no way a knock against the medical profession or anyone in it, because Florida has some of the best health care providers and institutions in the country and beyond.
– Sen. Clay Yarborough
The Legislature adopted the ban during the 1990s as lawmakers wrestled with rising malpractice premiums. There has been a concerted effort in recent years, though, to eliminate the ban, and members of Senate Judiciary heard from people on both sides of the issue Tuesday, the first day of the annual 60-day legislative session.
Accountability
Senate sponsor Clay Yarborough of Jacksonville, who chairs the committee, said existing law is “unjust and prevent[s] accountability.”
“This is in no way a knock against the medical profession or anyone in it, because Florida has some of the best health care providers and institutions in the country and beyond. I don’t have a number to quote, but I will venture to say we likely have a low, single-digit percentage of those in Florida’s health care community that have issues with malpractice or negligence,” Yarborough said.
“While we all understand no amount of money can bring back a loved one, to solely argue from a monetary or economic perspective would be misplaced, because no individual and no institution is above accountability, which is exactly what this bill is about.”
Opponents argued that changing the law would drive up costs of health care and incentivize physicians to leave the state, although recent research shows a number of other reasons why physicians are leaving practices, including family demands and inadequate support staff.
Shelly Knick is a claims adjuster for the Physicians Insurance company, which covers doctors and hospitals. She testified that the change would mean an additional 500 wrongful death lawsuits annually, an estimate she called conservative.
“Each [hospital] will face an additional one to two wrongful death cases annually,” Knicks testified.
“Non-economic damages like pain and suffering are often the largest portion of settlements which exponentially increase the cost. But, importantly, understand that most medical malpractice lawsuits do not involve negligence. They result from unfortunate medical outcomes, not bad medicine. “
Her remarks seemed to belie some of the stories supporters of the bill shared during their testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
‘We have been chosen’
Sara Franqui shared the story of her 28-year-old daughter, Sadie Dela Cruz, who died in 2021. Her daughter suffered what’s called an ovarian torsion, which occurs when an ovary twists on its supporting ligaments and cuts off blood flow. She said her daughter went to several physicians about her pain but that they misdiagnosed her condition.
When the pain became unmanageable, she testified, her daughter went to the emergency room at the hospital where she had worked for seven years. But her daughter, who had developed sepsis, was misdiagnosed by a “brand new doctor and a travelling nurse that was new.”
“All she needed was a septic test. She went to various doctors and when she finally went to the hospital and she thought she had hope to live they let her die,” Franqui told the House Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee.
Franqui, who also testified during the Senate hearing, said she feels she’s been “chosen” to take her experience and try to change the law.
“And now I come to you because I feel that we have been chosen,” she told senators. “We have been chosen as messengers to the people and to our representatives.”
Navy veteran Keith Davis died from a blood clot after being admitted to a hospital for knee pain. His daughter, Sabrina Davis, filed a complaint against the doctor with the Department of Health. She testified that the Florida Board of Medicine, charged with disciplining physicians, found that the doctor violated the standards of care and committed medical malpractice.
The BOM hit the doctor with a $7,500 fine and made him take a continuing education course on blood clots, Davis said,
“I still ask myself today how my dad can serve in the Navy on a ballistic missile nuclear submarine and travel the depths of the ocean but when he goes into a hospital for knee pain not make it out alive.”
A push to cap
Florida has had no caps on pain and suffering in medical malpractice lawsuits since 2014, when the Florida Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional. But the makeup of the Florida Supreme court has changed since then, with the majority of the justices appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The medical community is eager to put the rejuggled court to the test.
Yarborough filed similar legislation last year but agreed to put a cap of $500,000 per claimant for practitioners and $750,000 on “non-practitioners” found liable, such as hospitals and health care facilities. The cap would drop to $150,000 for health care practitioners in emergency medical cases.
There are no caps in the 2025 legislation and at least one senator who voted to pass the Senate bill Tuesday explained his yes vote was conditional. Sen. Ed Hooper, chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, said he had three conversations with Yarborough about the bill and promised to support the measure in Senate Judiciary.
“I want to help and work with you to make this as good as it can be made, but my commitment to you was that I will support the bill at this stop and I’m not going to change my mind today,” Hooper said.
Palm Beach County Medical Society President-elect Vicki Norton told the Florida Phoenix Wednesday that she started practicing emergency medicine in Florida in 2010 with the security of knowing there were limits on the amount a plaintiff could be awarded for pain and suffering had she been sued. The threat of lawsuits, she said, was one reason she left Philadelphia.
“I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I was scared to death I was going to make a mistake and then I was going to get sued for like millions of dollars.”
Norton, assistant medical director of the Boca Raton Regional Hospital emergency department, said she saw her medical malpractice insurance premiums increase following the 2014 ruling. Also, hospital call sheets started to have “gaps in the schedule for high-risk specialties,” and that she once had to fly a patient from her hospital to UF Health Shands in Gainesville for emergency heart surgery.
“I had no surgeon on call,” she said. “I had to call all around the state.”
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