Gov. DeSantis vetoes sovereign immunity bill

After multiple failed attempts, lawmakers this year approved a modest increase to caps on damages payable in court settlements to people harmed by government negligence, without those people having to seek legislative action.

It marked the first such hike in 16 years and passed with overwhelming, bipartisan support in March.

This week, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed the measure (HB 145). He explained that the current system, which would have undergone no fundamental changes under the bill, “disincentivizes frivolous lawsuits,” and even moderately raising the payout levels would run counter to that aim.

“When you raise the cap, you are going to generate more unmeritorious lawsuits,” he said. “I have no question or doubt that that would happen. So, we’ll veto that.”

HB 145, sponsored by Sarasota Republican Rep. Fiona McFarland, focused on Florida’s sovereign immunity statutes, which restrict how people can seek compensation for government carelessness, and for how much.

Sovereign immunity is a centuries-old legal standard with roots in English common law, built on a legal maxim, “The king can do no wrong,” that today is in statutes in all but 11 states.

In practice, it shields state and local governments from having to settle pricey lawsuits without their consent. For victims of government negligence to receive payments above the state-settled caps — last set in Florida in 2010 at $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident — the Legislature must pass a special measure called a claims bill.

McFarland’s measure, to which Lake Mary Republican Sen. Jason Brodeur filed a companion (SB 1336) would have increased the caps to $350,000 per person and $500,000 per incident. Lawmakers agreed on those levels after a last-minute change Brodeur made to the measure reducing those amounts from $500,000 per person and $1 million per incident.

It would also have allowed local governments to voluntarily settle claims exceeding those caps without approval from the Legislature.

The bill, which would have gone into effect Oct. 1, drew sharp opposition, with more than 240 lobbyists registering to speak with lawmakers about it — including many representing counties, cities and their various agencies, including public hospitals, all of which face budget shortfalls under a proposed property tax amendment on the November ballot.

For McFarland, who first filed legislation with Brodeur targeting sovereign immunity ahead of the 2024 Session, the issue is about equal protection under the law and ensuring that claimants don’t face prohibitive obstacles when seeking deserved redress.

But that’s exactly the case now, she has argued, as harmed people must advance through “an incredibly arduous and difficult process” with a chasmic difference in outcomes depending on whether the offender was a public or private entity.

“If you or I or one of our loved ones is hit by a truck, we have to pay attention to what’s on the side of that truck,” she said in January, when the House first approved HB 145 with its $500,000 and $1 million caps, which would have increased to $600,00 and $1.2 million by 2031, respectively.

“Depending on whether there’s a corporate logo or a government seal, we have different access to monetary wholeness. That doesn’t sit right with me.”

McFarland acknowledged that local governments were staunchly against the changes she sought, which would increase their liability and, consequently, their insurance premiums.

“It’s worth it,” she said. “And it’s time.”

State lawmakers every year consider roughly a dozen claims bills, known also as “relief acts,” benefiting people physically harmed due to government carelessness, their estates or wrongly incarcerated exonerees.

Their success rate isn’t especially high. This year, just over a third of 14 such measures filed for consideration cleared both chambers, with cases including a man paralyzed in a police van, a motorist maimed in a crash with a state box-blade tractor and a young girl catastrophically injured due to parental abuse after the Department of Children and Families neglected to protect her, despite prior warning signs and reports involving her parents.

Most of those cases date back years, with lawmakers unsuccessfully carrying claims bills over multiple Sessions.

Last year, the success rate was 41%. But in 2024, 2023 and 2022, respectively, 10%, 50% and 31% of claims bills reached DeSantis’ desk.

DeSantis argued Monday that the fact some measures clear the Legislature every year shows the current system and payout structure works.

“I signed a number of claims bills this year,” he said. “People have gotten millions of dollars with that.”

Bob Harris, a lobbyist for the Panhandle Area Education Consortium, said last April that while McFarlane and Brodeur’s intentions are noble in wanting to hold governments as accountable to citizens as companies are to consumers, private and public entities are only so comparable.

“We’re not Walmart or Amazon. If we have a problem with our school buses, we can’t just stop transporting them. We can’t close our gyms down. We can’t close our schools. The law says we have to let people come in who slip and fall and are hurt,” he said. “The amount being recommended, I don’t know how we can possibly afford that.”

Others, like Latoya Harridon-Lodge of the Florida Justice Association, called the state’s existing payout caps “woefully inadequate” and the claims bill process “cumbersome.”

What we’ve done,” she said, “is politicize the pain of those who have been injured as a result of government negligence.”

It remains to be seen whether McFarland or Brodeur, who are both seeking re-election, will refile their legislation for the 2027 Session, when a new Governor will hold the veto pen.

Neither responded to requests for comment Wednesday.