TORTE REFORM BILL BREAK DOWN WITH ALEX

TORTE REFORM BILL BREAK DOWN WITH ALEX

Coronavirus.gov really is so the first thing is they're advertising it like this is a bill designed to save money for consumers to pay insurance premiums and so they're saying you know the narrative it is because of greedy trial lawyers- insurance payouts in louisiana are magnitudes higher than the rest of the country so the only way we can control this is to institute reforms that way insurance companies can afford to charge people less for their premiums. and so it saves money for everybody while sticking to those greedy lawyers- and the thing about it is not any of that is true the reason why insurance rates are so high it's a complicated issue which i'll be happy to get into- but the most salient point to take away is that all the studies.

That have been done to it to measure what the effect this bill would have approved have shown that there is no evidence it really will result in a decrease in premiums so you're you're putting all these handcuffs on on on recovery in trial law.

With an uncertain payoff in in premium saving so that should raise a red flag first of all but- the one thing i really want to stress as i take cases in some other states and- one of things we have to realize is that.

What makes louisiana- insurance pay out so much higher than the rest of the country is that.

Our entirety of tort law is based on something called a louisiana civil code article twenty three fifteen which just says that.

You break it you buy it.

That's it so if you want to know how much you owe for hurting somebody you look at evidence you you can suppose doctors and consider expert testimony but at the end of the day.

The interest of the law is to make sure that whatever the impact this injury has had in your life that's what they pay.

And to give you an example.

I represent the guy who suffered a herniated disc.

In taxes in a car accident and in louisiana.

You know this guy had treated with orthopedic surgeons you'd take injections it wasn't a surgical injury but it was affecting him it never goes away herniated disc.

You get one you're stuck with it.

Well in louisiana it would have been a settled easily for seventy five eighty grand.

In texas.

Fifteen thousand.

That was an act where they paid is whatever your medical bills art will give you a multiple of that.

They don't really care how your life is affected they don't really care.

If you know because the your job this injury affects you worse than with other people- i in some of the eastern seaboard states and their idea of tort reform is- you lose a hand that accident that's fifteen grand.

They don't care about any of the other particulars and so it's just.

So torn apart becomes a one size fits all way of capping recovery.

Because it's easier to adjudicate and it saves insurance companies a ton of money.

But it's not about helping victims it's not about.

Preserving the interest of justice that is not about.

Saving people money it's about saving insurance company money.

So the thinking about the realize that yes.

Attorneys have terrible reputations were betrayed horribly in the movies and a lot of the parties are in these horrible reputations.

But the reality is the system is adversarial so for every.

Crappy attorney there is trying to get a million dollars for a paper cut.

There are attorneys on the other side saying nope and their doctors we say no and the judge has to listen everybody.

Is so you're not going to have a situation where you have a- a broken arm and you get a million dollars just because you asked for it.

You know there's a lot a lot of