(The Center Square) – Georgia dropped off the American Tort Reform Foundation’s list of “Judicial Hellholes” for the first time in seven years, but remains on the watch list due to certain “problematic” county courts.
Some also question whether the state’s tort reform law has reduced insurance rates as state leaders promised.
Georgia’s absence from the “Judicial Hellhole” list is largely attributed to Gov. Brian Kemp’s reform package.
The bills required attorneys to focus on actual pain and suffering in trials, and shielded businesses from liability for issues outside their control.
The reform package also allowed juries to consider seat belt usage in auto accident cases and limited awards to actual paid medical costs, a change intended to eliminate inflated or “phantom” damages, supporters said.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones said at the time the changes would lead to stabilizing insurance costs for consumers and increase transparency and fairness. But it’s yet to be seen if that’s actually the case.
This week, Insurance Commissioner John King posted an article on X titled “Georgia, Republicans, we have a problem,” examining recent GOP election losses.
“The cost of insurance is too damn high here and the Insurance Commissioner’s office doesn’t have the power to simply reject rate increases,” King wrote. He went on to say, “I’m planning a push to cap the excess profits auto insurance companies are reaping on the backs of families. Other states have done so and their rates are falling. Why don’t we do the same in Georgia?”
Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, said Kemp’s tort reform bill was “a scam.”
“Instead of going after insurance companies to lower rates, Brian Kemp passed a bill making it harder for the little guy to sue insurance companies in court,” McLaurin said in a statement in response to King’s post. “But now that Republicans are starting to lose more elections, they’re starting to admit that their tort reform ‘solution’ was just a scam designed to line the pockets of insurance companies at the expense of working people. The truth finally comes out, not even a year later.”
Georgia currently has some of the highest car insurance premiums in the nation. Bankrate shows Georgia among the top ten states for average monthly cost of minimum coverage.
While Georgia avoided landing on the Judicial Hellholes list this year, some county courts, specifically in Gwinnett, Fulton, and Cobb were called out as “problematic” for lack of fairness and lawyers exploiting the system for their own financial benefit, the report said.
Previously, Georgia ranked number four on the Judicial Hellholes list, and before that, it was number one for two consecutive years. This is the first year Georgia has not landed on the list since the 2018-2019 report.
