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HOW A LIABILITY CLAIM WOULD WORK UNDER
THE PROPOSED LAW WITH AND WITHOUT INSURANCE

current Law
Proposed Law Proposed Law
(victim with insurance)
(victim without insurance)

Medical bills
100,000
100,000
100,000

After insurance adjustment
25,000
25,000
100,000

Jury-awarded medical damages
100,000
25,000
100,000

Additional damages (x3)
300,000
75,000
300,000

total jury award
400,000
100,000
400,000

Attorney fees
-150,000
-37,500
-150,000

To hospital
-25,000
-25,000
-100,000

Paid insurance premiums
-10,000
-10,000
0

net to injured party
$215,000
$27,500
$150,000

Thus, if you have insurance, the beneit of it is transferred from you to the person who injured you. The $10,000 in premiums
you paid would save the defendant’s insurance company $300,000 and cost you an additional $122,500 ($150,000 minus

$27,500) in lost compensation. Likewise, because the hospital collects four times as much money from the uninsured victim
($100,000 versus $25,000), care providers have an incentive to bypass insurance and instead bill directly.

tive governance. The Founding Fathers ment that is in thrall to those who write Web site, complete with the same sug-
separated government into three the biggest campaign checks.
gested title as the Tennessee version:

branches and delegated the power of SB1184/HB978 was not, in fact, www.alec.org/model-legislation/the-
deciding how much to award in civil crafted in Tennessee at all but is boil- phantom-damages-elimination-act/.

cases to the sound judgment of a jury erplate language provided to all state The text of the Tennessee bill claims
of ordinary citizens. In contrast, the legislatures by the American Legisla- the public’s welfare requires it. Phyllis,

current general Assembly is inserting tive Exchange Council (ALEC)—an or- Jeff, and Zachary goodman might not
itself into liability verdicts without ever ganization that brings state lawmakers agree—nor would the average Tennes-

hearing any of the evidence.
together with its corporate members so sean decimated by another’s reckless act,
the two can draft legislation in tandem.
who then sees this law do the same thing

TENNESSEE AND BEYOND
Both Tracy and Haynes are listed as to his or her compensatory damages.
At the national level, the Republican members of ALEC by the Center for Isn’t it more than hypocritical for our

Party’s accommodation with Washing- Media and Democracy, and Haynes has conservative state legislators to decry
ton special interests alienated many bragged about the usefulness of attend- “one size fits all” governmental edicts

conservatives and helped create the Tea ing ALEC conferences: “You literally from Washington, DC, while passing
Party. At the state level here in Tennes- look at legislation that other states legislation provided to them by ALEC,

see, populists of both conservative and have passed or are proposing... You sit a secretive organization headquartered
liberal stripe may need to join together around a table and discuss it, and then only five miles and directly across the

and agitate against a one-party govern-
you vote on the legislation you think Potomac River from Capitol Hill?
should be model legislation.”

The ALEC-provided version of Mark Spurlock is a freelance writer and sometime computer
SB1184/HB978 is available at ALEC’s
programmer who lives with his two children and several

animals in Maryville. Besides all forms of writing, his interests
are education, the Internet, politics, and the performing

arts. You can reach him at mark@markspurlock.info.

120 cityviewmag.com january february 2014