Kemp addresses the crowd at PACT Summit
WASHINGTON – An advocacy group has named Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp its Champion of the Year for measures passed in 2025 that addressed fairness concerns with his state’s courts.
Massive verdicts in the state raised eyebrows until about a year ago, when Kemp announced a plan to push legislation to, he said, level the playing field for plaintiffs and defendants. After lawmakers passed a pair of bills, Kemp signed them into law in April.
Before that legislation, defendants in car-wreck cases couldn’t tell juries that the plaintiff wasn’t wearing his or her seatbelt. Kemp was honored last week by Protecting American Consumers Together, an organization pushing for a fair legal system to protect plaintiffs, victims and consumers.
Kemp has called the legislation’s passage "a victory for the people of our state who for too long were suffering the impacts of an out-of-balance legal environment."
Blockbuster verdicts in the state had earned it a spot on the American Tort Reform Association's "Judicial Hellholes" list in recent years. Georgia juries have a particular disdain for Ford Motor Company, which was hit with a $1.7 billion verdict in 2022 and a $2.5 billion verdict last year.
Help from the tort reform bill would allow defendants like Ford to introduce evidence that car-crash plaintiffs weren't wearing their seatbelts. Ford was only able to tell jurors that there were functioning seatbelts in the F-250 that rolled over in a crash that killed Melvin and Voncile Hill in 2014.
It was alleged a defective roof killed the couple - the same allegation in last year's $2.5 billion verdict. Not wearing a seatbelt will not be considered evidence of negligence or causation, the state's former law said.
Other changes in this year's tort-reform package target "phantom damages" and "jury anchoring."
Phantom damages are awarded for inflated medical bills introduced in evidence. Forbidding jury anchoring would keep plaintiffs lawyers from tossing out the idea of a large verdict during closing arguments.
The law also:
-Targets negligent security claims, protecting companies from lawsuits when they adequately keep their property safe;
-Splits some trials in two, with the issue of liability being heard before plaintiffs can try to convince juries to award certain dollar amounts;
-Closes a loophole allowing for double recovery of attorneys fees;
-Keeps plaintiffs from withdrawing their cases during trials in order to refile in a more favorable jurisdiction;
-Lets defendants file their motions to dismiss faster; and
-Reforms third-party litigation funding.
Foreign companies that want to invest in lawsuits will not be allowed to, and companies that are allowed to are prohibited from having any input into litigation strategy. Their involvement in lawsuits will no longer be kept secret from defendants and judges.
