House, Senate kill protection bills

By Staff
from staff and wire reports
Oct. 18, 2002
JACKSON  House and Senate committees on Thursday killed each other's bills designed to cap damages businesses might face in lawsuits, raising doubts whether corporations will get legal protections they have sought in this special session.
The House committee on a 6-5 vote killed a second wide-ranging Senate-passed bill. A Senate committee killed two House bills including one passed Wednesday that would have capped damages for all businesses at 10 percent of net worth.
Even so, lawmakers return here at 10 a.m. today, hoping that House Speaker Tim Ford and Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck might facilitate a compromise.
There was no discussion in the House committee. Rep. Percy Watson, D-Hattiesburg, the committee chairman, said after the vote, he hoped the Senate would consider the House bills and get into conference where a compromise might be reached.
The Senate bill was a sweeping document that called for strict caps on punitive damages. The bill called for a $5 million cap on punitive damages for all businesses. It also would cap awards for non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, and death at $500,000, a provision similar to what was passed in a medical malpractice reform bill signed into law over a week ago.
The House bills did not go as far as the Senate proposals.
Senators were irate over the House committee's action.
I can't believe we're at this point,'' said Sen. Terry Burton, D-Newton. We sent them a bowl of soup and they sent us dishwater.''
Sen. Bill Canon, R-Columbus, described the 10 percent cap bill as hog wash.''
Sen. Tommy Roberston, R-Moss Point, said the 10 percent cap bill would do untold harm to major businesses in the state.
The House voted 76-36 Thursday for a bill to protect banks and other lending institutions from lawsuits over issues such as credit life insurance.
The lending institutions argue they are facing hundreds of lawsuits from people who claimed they bought credit life insurance and other extras such as property protection and were not told about it.
Credit life insurance would pay off a loan if anything happened to the borrower. The courts have ruled that financial institutions cannot require the insurance as a condition of qualifying for a loan.
The bill had been endorsed by the Mississippi Bankers Association but opposed by trial lawyers who told lawmakers nothing was being done to penalize lenders who committed wrongdoing.
This is a broad political issue,'' said Rep. Ed Blackmon Jr., D-Canton, who handled the bill in the House. We have a crisis situation for the banks. It is a crisis that is self-inflicted.''
Nonetheless, Blackmon said the bill would give borrowers a means to be reimbursed illegally charged fees. It also creates a scale of damages that could be collected based on the amount of the illegal fees.
Blackmon said borrowers would have a year to file lawsuits after the bill was signed into law, but after that no lawsuits could be filed to recover penalties and damages.
He said the law would expire on July 1, 2004, at which time the banks would lose the cap protection. Blackmon said that provision was added in the belief that banks and other lends would have ended such predatory practices.
The House committee had killed a Senate bill that contained similar provisions.
The bill now goes to the Senate.