TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The House is fast-tracking a medical malpractice bill ahead of the 2026 legislative session that’s identical to one Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed earlier this year.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would allow more people in Florida to recover money for the loss of their family members due to medical malpractice.

Under current law, parents of children 25 and older can’t get “noneconomic damages” — money for unquantifiable feelings like pain and suffering — when their child dies due to medical malpractice.

Adult children 25 and older also can’t get those monetary damages for the malpractice death of their parents. Opponents have dubbed it Florida’s “free kill” law.

DeSantis pointed to a lack of “safeguards” like caps on the total amount awarded when he vetoed this year’s bill.

Despite that, the House is pushing through legislation with no compensation limit. Last session, House Speaker Daniel Perez said the House “didn’t entertain caps.”

When Sen. Clay Yarborough, R-Jacksonville, introduced an amendment last year to limit payouts at $1,000,000, a bipartisan group of his colleagues rejected it.

This year, Yarborough has not refiled his bill. No Senate bill has yet been filed as a companion to the House legislation.

The medical malpractice exception was written into law in 1990, as lawmakers and business groups feared a massive spike in medical malpractice insurance.

Health care and insurance interests have since fought changes to the law.

On Wednesday, representatives of the Florida Medical Association, Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Hospital Association spoke out against the House proposal, pointing to Florida’s already high cost of medical malpractice insurance and recent major settlements, like the nearly $71 million award out of Tampa in a stroke case.

Rep. Dana Trabulsy, R-Fort Pierce, is sponsoring the legislation again this year with co-sponsor Rep. Johanna Lopez, D-Orlando. Trabulsy said she thinks running the bill is “the right thing to do.”

She said she’s in “constant contact” with the governor’s office, but intends to run the bill as it is now — without any caps on total damages. She has previously said that insurance rates didn’t come down because of the current restrictions in law, despite lawmakers’ intentions.

People who have been blocked by the law say most attorneys won’t take those cases because they can only get economic damages and the cost of mounting a case is too high — leaving them feeling like they have no access to a fair investigation.

Lauren Korniyenko, who ran into Florida’s medical malpractice exception after the death of her mother, said it makes “justice look accessible on paper while blocking it in practice.”

“No one should lose their constitutional rights just by entering a Florida hospital,” Korniyenko said Wednesday.

Korniyenko said she and other families were disappointed that the Legislature didn’t push to override DeSantis’ veto, despite lawmakers’ overwhelming support.

But she said it’s only a matter of time until the law changes.

“The lobbyists are paid to be here, but we actually have skin in the game,” she said.

_____

©2025 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.