Our View

Our View

To cap or not to cap lawsuit awards, attorney fees

Arkansas’ elitist law professionals appear poised to take on the political bosses in Little Rock with their own constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, will establish new rules on disclosing campaign finances, block lawmakers from changing tort laws, and making it harder for lawmakers to override a gubernatorial veto.

The proposed ballot initiative appears to be in retaliation to a constitutional amendment lawmakers are asking voters to approve next year that will limit damages in civil lawsuits, cap attorneys fees and grant the Legislature the power to write the rules of the Arkansas Supreme Court.

At the time the Republican led Legislature voted to put their proposal before voters the Arkansas Bar Association made it vividly clear it was strongly opposed to lawmakers sticking their noses where they don’t belong.

It is apparent voters are being put slap dab in the middle of what appears to be a political power grab by lawmakers who are being supported by business organizations as well as health care groups and nursing home owners. What will be really interesting is if, in fact, these decision making lawyers do purge forward with their endeavor and both issues are on the ballot next year it will certainly create a considerable amount of heated discussion and debate on both sides.

In fact, over $1 million was raised by a consortium of health care groups, with even more raised by opponents, chiefly lawyers. Some of these issues date back as long ago as 2003 when a $1 million cap on punitive damages was eroded away by the Supreme Court, and since then there have been several unsuccessful attempts to change the state constitution to allow such limits. And, last November, a proposal to cap “noneconomic damages” in medical lawsuits was canceled for a vote after the Supreme Court said its backers failed to define critical parts of the law on the ballots.

Something else these lawyers are conjuring up to counteract the politicians and that is a measure that would scale back other powers of the Legislature and advance campaign finance measures that have been largely ignored.

Under its various provisions, lawmakers would need a two-thirds vote to override a governor’s veto – only a simple majority is currently needed – and surplus funds would no longer be directed to individual legislators or a group of them to spend.

Lawmakers would also lose their power of review of state agency administrative rules.

Now, we all know this isn’t sitting well with Republican lawmakers and if competing amendments each earn an approval from a majority of voters, the proposal with the most votes is adopted.

It will certainly be interesting to see how all this plays out, how much money will be spent on each side convincing voters to support their initiatives and how voters react.