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The new Indiana Alliance for Legal Reform’s legislative effort to offer businesses some protections from liability lawsuits cleared the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, but without original language that would have provided immunity for transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft.
Much of House Bill 1417 was revised by an amendment from House Judiciary Committee Chair Chris Jeter, a Fishers Republican. The changes removed all language giving immunity to Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing companies, leaving only limitations on public nuisance claims and a substantial rise in the cap on qualified settlement offers from $5,000 to $100,000.
“You gotta be really careful when you start making people immune from lawsuits,” Jeter said of his motivations for removing the (ride-hailing) aspects of the bill. “Our laws and our courts are really good at kind of fettering out who should be liable (and) who shouldn’t, who shouldn’t be in a case (and) who should, but when you just put a strict bar on somebody not being able to be sued, you’re precluding any factual scenario you could think of.”
Under the original bill, individuals would have been prohibited from suing ride-hailing companies for damages caused by a driver’s behavior, even including sexual assault against a passenger.
Jeter said he thinks legislators will keep talking about protections for ride-hailing companies, and that he understands the desire for tort reform, but he thinks a lot of it is “a solution in search of a problem.”
“I think our juries are very good; I think our courts are very good. I think we’re talking about a problem that, here, doesn’t exist,” Jeter said. “Now, it could become a problem here someday. I guess my response would be, well, then let’s deal with that then.”
Rep. Matt Lehman, a Berne Republican and author of the bill, said in committee that the amended legislation is a “next step forward” for liability law, but he still sees more work to be done.
Lehman was supportive of the amendment, later telling The Lawyer he thinks there are a lot of pieces that will need to be worked through over the next couple of months, but because of the shortened legislative session, he wanted to focus on what he considered the primary things: limitations on public nuisance actions and raising the qualified settlement offer.
David Long, a member of the new Indiana Alliance for Legal Reform and former president pro tempore of the Indiana Senate, recognized those concerns but indicated that other issues will be worked on this summer to potentially lead to more legislation next session.
Under the bill, a public nuisance lawsuit would only be allowed if the nuisance is caused by an underlying illegal act.
“In other words, car manufacturers should not be sued for crimes committed by criminals who steal cars,” said Stephen Wolff, executive director for the alliance, appearing to refer to settlements KIA and Hyndai have reached to resolve claims that their cars were easy to steal.
But Scott Faultless, a personal injury attorney with Indianapolis-based Craig Kelley and Faultless LLC, testified in opposition to the bill’s public nuisance provision, saying it would not protect private actions of individual Hoosiers.
“This has a dramatic impact on individual rights to bring a public nuisance lawsuit, if they are specifically harmed,” Faultless said.
Faultless also said the bill’s effective date was ambiguous.
If the bill passes, Faultless said, “there should be a clear indication that it only applies to causes of action that accrue on or after July 1 of this year. Let’s not force folks to have to litigate that issue, as well, because public nuisance lawsuits are hard.”
The committee ultimately approved the bill on a 9-4 party-line vote, with all Democrats voting against it. The bill now advances to the full House for consideration.
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