By Paul Waldmiller
Did you know that the Florida Senate Democratic Leader, Lauren Book (Dixie County), has filed a bill in the Florida Senate which removes a current law that prevents families from filing medical malpractice lawsuits against doctors or hospitals?
The bill, SB-690, which was filed by Book, has a Republican sponsor in The Florida House. Representative Mike Belran of Hillsborough County has filed a similar bill, HB-129.
The new bill sponsored by Lauren Book will specifically lift the current restrictions, allowing parents of an unmarried adult-child who dies or the adult child of an unmarried parent who dies, the equal right to pursue medical malpractice lawsuits in those cases.
Currently, Florida is the only state the differentiates medical malpractice from other types of wrongful deaths for the purpose of excluding adult children of parents, and adult children from seeking pain and suffering damages for wrongful death in medical malpractice cases. The Florida law in place now, only allows medical malpractice claims by surviving spouses, or minor children. Anyone else has been deemed by advocates of the new bills, as “free kill.” These advocates have also been lobbying the Florida legislature for change for several years now.