Today's Journal Record reports that the Oklahoma Legislature has reached a compromise with a new civil justice bill. The bill mainly affects Oklahoma personal injury and medical malpractice lawsuits.
Some of the changes:
Some of the changes:
- Noneconomic damages are capped at $400,000 unless willful misconduct is proven in court. (There was a push for a "hard" cap of $300,000 which could not be removed).
- In cases where the judge and jury decide that noneconomic damages in excess of $400,000 are warranted, the additional money would be provided by a state-created indemnity fund. This begs the question: who's funding the additional damages?
- Concerning "bad actors" in the medical community - The bill prevents information from peer review proceedings from being discovered by a plaintiff in a lawsuit except in very limited circumstances.
- Class actions: Republicans dropped their attempt to make all parties to a class-action lawsuit opt in to participate. The civil justice bill sets specific guidelines for certifying a class and for determining attorney fees.
- The "certificate of merit" requirement is back for professional liability cases. The previous certificate of merit requirement only applied to medical malpractice cases (and was thus unconstitutional). This requirement now applies to other professionals.
- Joint and several responsibility: Allows a defendant who is more than 50 percent at fault to pay an additional portion of the damages.
