Iowa House panel advances liability protection for trucking companies – Iowa Capital Dispatch

A 12 months after an analogous invoice died on the ground of the Iowa Home, Republican lawmakers are once more advancing laws to increase legal responsibility safety for trucking firms whose staff trigger damage, loss of life or different damages whereas on the job.

An Iowa Home subcommittee on Tuesday superior Home Research Invoice 114, which might put a $1 million cap on noneconomic damages in opposition to a trucking firm in civil instances involving private damage or loss of life. Noneconomic damages would possibly embrace ache and struggling, emotional trauma, lack of consortium of a partner or related claims.

Iowa Motor Truck Affiliation lobbyist David Scott stated the group proposed the invoice to “carry some equity to nuclear verdicts across the nation.”

“The laws supplies a degree of predictability to all 804,000 industrial automobiles in Iowa — these are farm vans, bread vans, building automobiles company-owned pickups — and it’s not about reducing insurance coverage. It’s about to easily present a identified degree of publicity,” Scott stated.

The invoice would additionally block claims in opposition to employers for negligence in hiring, coaching, supervising or trusting an worker, in addition to some punitive damages. An employer must acknowledge the motive force was an worker and appearing within the scope of employment as a way to obtain exemption from some legal responsibility. The employer would nonetheless be answerable for financial damages corresponding to medical payments, lack of wages and property harm.

Quite a few enterprise and business organizations, in addition to insurance coverage representatives, spoke in favor of the invoice, whereas organizations representing attorneys had been opposed.

Kellie Paschke, representing the Iowa Affiliation of Justice, disputed that the invoice was about offering a degree of identified publicity for trucking firms. “If that was true, this invoice would simply be concerning the million-dollar cap that’s within the invoice. As an alternative, this invoice is about defending unhealthy actors,” she stated.

She stated the invoice would shield employers who fail to keep up automobiles or rent identified drug addicts, or who make drivers work past their hours of service, inflicting fatigue that results in accidents. “These are choices which are made by employers, not the workers. And what this invoice does is make the worker the scapegoat for the employers’ unhealthy choices,” Paschke stated.

Representatives of lawyer organizations stated there have been no “nuclear” verdicts in Iowa and that insurance coverage charges are aggressive. Trucking firms argued that industrial supplemental or industrial umbrella insurance policies should not inexpensive or accessible.

Rep. Sami Scheetz, D-Cedar Rapids, voted in opposition to advancing the invoice. He stated juries needs to be those to resolve the worth of a human life.

“For a protracted, very long time on this state, we’ve been trusting our neighbors or friends to take a seat within the courtroom, hearken to testimony and make that call on behalf of everyone within the state. However for some cause, there’s a sentiment working via this constructing this week that we must always take that immediately from Iowans to resolve this,” he stated.

Republican Reps. Phil Thompson of Boone and Invoice Gustoff of Des Moines voted to advance the invoice to the Home Judiciary Committee.

“So all of us, clearly, simply lived via a not-so-subtle reminder of how necessary that industrial motorized vehicle business is to not simply our economic system, however actually our every day lives and all the things we contact,” Thompson stated. “I believe it’s, frankly, unlucky that each time a industrial motorized vehicle is concerned in an accident, some folks see greenback indicators …”

Republican lawmakers in each the Home and Senate are additionally working to cap noneconomic damages at $1 million in medical malpractice instances. Gov. Kim Reynolds made that proposal a precedence in her Situation of the State message.

The trucking firm legal responsibility invoice has confronted roadblocks the previous two years. In 2021, the invoice didn’t attain the ground of both chamber. Final 12 months, Republicans within the Iowa Home tried to connect the invoice to unrelated laws on the ground, however the measure was defeated with 12 GOP votes in opposition to it.