In April, the Florida House of Representatives showed a rare move of bipartisanism when they passed a bill that would allow the parents of single adult children without any children or dependents to receive noneconomic damages in medical malpractice claims.
The bill, formally known as House Bill 6011, passed by nearly 100 votes and revises a three-decade ban that was implemented in the early 1990s as a tactic to deal with increasing medical malpractice costs. Opposition to the bill still focuses on the forecasting of the increased medical malpractice lawsuits thereby increasing medical malpractice insurance rates; however, Florida is the only state in the union that treats wrongful death suits separately if it originates from medical malpractice.
The bill’s Florida Senate counterpart is Senate Bill 262, and it has not been heard in any committee as Florida Senate Judiciary Committee Senator Danny Burgess previously delayed a vote on the bill. In the House the bill was sponsored by Representative Spencer Roach.
In the state of Florida, if someone dies due to a wrong or illegal act, negligence or breach of contract, the state allows lawsuits from family members or from the estate. The lawsuits can cover earnings, lost wages and benefits; however, these lawsuits are not possible for medical malpractice cases.
Therefore, parents of single, unmarried adult children who do not have children cannot sue for noneconomic damages. The law cuts both ways as adults who are 25 years or older cannot currently file wrongful death claims for parents who died from alleged medical malpractice.
House Bill 6011 has an effective date of July 1, which will obviously be delayed with a vote in the Florida senate.
What the passing of the bill may mean from a macro standpoint across the country is a review of who can sue for medical malpractice in a decade where non-traditional families now outnumber traditional, single-unit, nuclear families.
The Florida Medical Association has already come out publicly against the bill, including Association President Douglas Murphy, a physician from Ocala, Florida.
On the contrary, bill supporters bring up deceased victims who are not able to speak from the grave and also has the support of the Florida Justice Association, a trial lawyers professional organization.
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