CLM Magazine reported that Florida enacted significant tort reforms in 2023, altering the framework of civil litigation and addressing concerns about rising lawsuits and large jury verdicts.
The changes are part of a broader shift in the U.S. civil litigation environment, where businesses have faced increasing high-value jury awards and expanding liability exposure. These so-called “nuclear verdicts,” often reaching millions of dollars, have raised concerns among insurers, employers, and risk managers about escalating costs that ultimately reach consumers through higher prices and insurance premiums. Against that backdrop, several states began pursuing tort reform measures in 2023, with Florida among the most prominent examples. The reforms were intended to recalibrate the litigation system, reduce excessive claims pressure on businesses, and establish clearer evidentiary standards in civil cases, according to a CLM Magazine article.
Florida’s 2023 legislation, House Bill 837, introduced multiple structural changes to civil litigation. The law shortened the statute of limitations for negligence claims from four years to two years and shifted the state from a pure comparative negligence system to a modified comparative negligence system, preventing plaintiffs who are more than 50% responsible for an incident from recovering damages. The reform also revised rules governing admissible evidence for medical expenses, requiring courts to rely on amounts actually paid rather than inflated billed amounts when assessing damages, according to Holland & Knight.
The scope of the reform triggered significant activity in the legal system. In the weeks leading up to the law’s effective date on March 24, 2023, plaintiffs’ attorneys filed tens of thousands of lawsuits in anticipation of the new restrictions, with estimates of more than 100,000 filings statewide. The surge underscored the expected impact of the legislation on future litigation and signaled that attorneys anticipated the reforms would limit certain claims or recovery pathways going forward, as reported by Moran Kidd.
The Claims and Litigation Management Alliance is a professional organization founded in 2007 that focuses on the claims, insurance, and litigation management industries. Headquartered in the United States, it provides education programs, conferences, and publications for professionals involved in risk management, insurance claims, and corporate legal operations.
