Personal Injury and Tort Reform: Current Developments, Effectiveness, How Parties Adapt and Respond
Course Details
- smart_display Format
Live Online with Live Q&A
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Personal Injury and Med Mal
- event Date
Thursday, November 6, 2025
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
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This CLE webinar will discuss recent developments in tort reform and their impact on personal injury cases from the perspective of both plaintiffs and defendants.
Ms. Christen defends automotive, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, and technology clients in commercial and product liability disputes in state and federal courts. An experienced trial attorney, she has successfully first- and second-chaired trials for global manufacturers and preeminent medical institutions. Ms. Christen leverages her training from the University of Virginia’s Trial Advocacy College, as well as her master’s degree in persuasive communication, to devise efficient, business-driven resolution strategies for companies in all phases of litigation.
Ms. Gallagher is a Partner with KKTP, practicing in all areas of medical malpractice, wrongful death, and personal injury. She joined KKTP in the spring of 2016 as a law clerk and continued with the Firm upon obtaining her Florida law license. Ms. Gallagher has successfully litigated cases throughout Florida and the United States. Her nationwide practice emphasizes cases involving the misdiagnosis of kidney disease.
Mr. Kurzban has been an attorney at Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt, P.A., since 1995 and was made an equity partner in 2013. He is the managing partner in an established 40 plus year law firm with a stellar reputation. Mr. Kurzban is currently a member of the Dade County Bar, the Florida Bar, the Hawaii Bar, the American Association of Justice, the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, the American Bar Association, and the American Constitution Society. He is also AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell and has been named a Distinguished Lawyer, a Super Lawyer, Lawyer of Distinction, and one of the 10 best Attorneys in South Florida.
Mr. Wescoe represents motor carriers, brokers, freight forwarders, transportation intermediaries, and third-party logistics providers, and their insurers, in casualty-related litigation and cargo-related litigation throughout Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. He also represents maritime personal injury defendants and cargo defendants. With more than twenty-five years of experience serving the transportation industry, and with his background in ocean marine claims adjustment and underwriting, Mr. Wescoe brings a unique perspective to his practice, particularly in complex and high value cases. He is dedicated to providing comprehensive legal services to his clients, assisting them with contract drafting and review, coverage analyses, and navigating complex regulatory issues.
For several decades now, the defense bar has promoted the need to “reform” tort law to eliminate perceived problems or abuses. Most recently, Florida, in 2023, and Georgia, in 2025, enacted very different but expansive tort reforms making both procedural and substantive changes that, among other things, affect statutes of limitation, pleading requirements, separate liability and damages phases of trial, alter causes of action, and more. Louisiana, South Carolina, Arkansas, and Oklahoma have also passed various tort reform statutes directed as discreet issues. Another recent trend in tort reform is filing RICO suits against specific plaintiffs firms and their preferred medical providers for allegedly perpetuating fraudulent claims.
Some jurisdictions, however, have declined to adopt these types of changes for numerous reasons. Although opponents of tort reform may agree that certain tort reform goals are proper, they strongly quesiton whether procedures imposed by tort reform actually accomplish those goal without harming injured parties, or whether there is a way to measure effectiveness.
Listen as our esteemed panel reviews the history of tort reform, procedural and substantive changes implemented by statute or judicial precedent in various jurisdictions, reasons why tort reform has been rejected in others, how changes are enforced, the practical effectiveness of these measures on the perceived problems they were intended to address, unintended consequences, how plaintiffs and defendants have adjusted, and more.
I. History of tort reform and perceived problems
II. Overview of changes on matters such as anchoring and asking for non-economic damages, collateral source rule, bifurcation/trifurcation of trials, double recovery of attorney fees, voluntary dismissals & motions to dismiss, seat belt rule, negligent security cases, third-party litigation funding disclosures
III. Strategies and responses by plaintiffs
IV. Unintended consequences
V. Potential challenges to tort reform statutes
VI. Using RICO statutes to address alleged collusion
The panel will review these and other important issues:
- Are any states proposing to roll back tort reform and if so, why?
- Are certain types of personal injury cases more affected than others?
- What is the difference between corrective justice and economic tort theory?
- What assumptions underlie the push for tort reform?
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