Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee releases report on medical liability venue rules

The Pennsylvania Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC) recently unveiled its report on the potential impacts of a change to the state’s medical liability venue rules.

In late 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Civil Procedural Rules Committee proposed reversing the venue reforms adopted during 2002 with the passage of the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act (MCARE). The change would again enable a practice known as “venue shopping,” in which personal injury attorneys can move medical liability claims to counties that have a history of awarding higher payouts to plaintiffs, according to the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP).

Last February, the committee announced that it would delay the changes until the LBFC released its report, which was directed by Senate Resolution 20.

The LBFC’s report noted that, during the time since the MCARE reforms, lawsuit filings and payments decreased. The report also finds that medical liability insurance rates increased from 1996 to 2007 and then began decreasing.

State House Republican leaders released a joint statement Monday expressing with of the committee’s findings but expressing disappointment that the LBFC did not ask the court to abandon its proposal to reverse the venue rule.

“The study and lack of recommendations by LBFC simply underscore our point – that any change, such as the revocation of the venue rule – would lead to uncertainty and the loss of predictability with respect to medical malpractice insurance rates and cause them to skyrocket,” House Speaker Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny), Majority Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Lancaster) and Policy Chairman Donna Oberlander (R-Clarion/Armstrong/Forest) said in the statement. “Therefore, we continue to echo our concerns about revoking the venue rule and respectfully ask the court’s Civil Procedural Rules Committee to keep things as they currently are. We don’t see that the system is broken, so we don’t believe an ill-advised fix is worth it.”