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How Legislation May Affect YOU

Every year the Florida Legislature meets in Tallahassee to consider bills that may restrict your rights, or remove them completely, in terms of your ability to go court to ask a jury of your peers to decide an issue – many of these issues should NOT be decided by legislation.

For example, in a legislative session in 2011, the Florida Legislature considered laws in medical malpractice that would limit your ability to bring a medical malpractice claim.

Not surprisingly, Florida physicians are reluctant to testify against one another. Typically, if an attorney has a client who has been harmed as the result of a medical procedure or in some hospital setting, the attorney must go out of state to find a physician who would be willing to testify as an expert witness. Physicians willing to do this must agree to travel to Florida and must be paid.

This year, the Florida Legislation passed a law that says that those physicians who come from out of state must not only register with the State of Florida, but must pay a fee to come to Florida to give an opinion in a medical malpractice case. These physicians are also subject to sanction if the Florida Legislation judges that they have given testimony that is misleading or untrue. The fact is, very few doctors who testify on behalf of other doctors are ever sanctioned by this law.

The point to take away from this example is this: When you hear of laws such as this being proposed in Tallahassee, it is in YOUR best interest to pick up the phone and call your Legislator, your Senator, or your Representative and tell them that you want them to look out for YOU, the citizen. Stress to them that it is important to you that they make sure YOUR rights are being protected, not the rights of those who have paid lobbyists to pass laws that benefit big business, hospitals, and other parties who care more for the money they make than for the potential harm they do to patients.

Medical malpractice is just one area in which the Florida Legislature sometimes challenges the rights of citizens. We invite you to visit our website frequently for updates on issues under consideration by the Florida Legislature which may interest you.