ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Georgia Senate Democrats offered up their own solutions Thursday to the seemingly never-ending issue of tort reform, as political, legal and social concerns continue rising over the state’s controversial premise liability laws.

Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II (D-Augusta) introduced the Pro People, Pro Business Act, which he said is a “real solution to many small business owners’ premises liability concerns.”

On average, Georgia residents pay a tort tax of about $1,370 a year, a cost passed down to consumers when companies are forced to raise prices to afford rising insurance costs because of premises liability lawsuits, insurance experts said.

Jones said his bill addresses three main concerns:

• A business cannot be sued solely on the fact that they are in a high crime area.
• It protects a business if it has never had a problem on the property before.
• It also clarifies what a business needs to do in order to be protected from a lawsuit if someone is injured, such as sufficient lighting and security cameras.

“We want people to be safe.” Jones said. “So we give an incentive for business actually to make people safe. If they do that, then the only way to actually be to file that lawsuit is having a rebuttable presumption against liability. It can be overcome, but it has to be by clear and convincing evidence.”

The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) named Georgia the nation’s number one judicial hellhole for nuclear verdicts.

The ATRA ranking also prompted the Insurance Information Institute to launch a statewide campaign against what it calls “legal system abuse.”

While Georgia ranked the number one state for business by Area Development Magazine in 2024, costs for customers and residents are going up in order for businesses to afford their overhead.

“The unfortunate reality is our current litigation climate has led to increased costs for consumers and a higher barrier to entry for those who want to create jobs in our state,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said during an October 2024 roundtable discussion on civil litigation and its impact on the state.

Kemp’s efforts began with the passage of the Data Analysis for Tort Reform Act (HB 1114) last year which required the state’s Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire (OCI) to collect insurance claims data evaluating the cost of litigation for companies and, ultimately, consumers.

The commissioner’s report, released on Nov. 8, found the majority of claims fell under auto liability, but most payouts more than $500,000 all fell under business liability.

Georgia’s premises liability law states “Where an owner or occupier of land, by express or implied invitation, induces or leads others to come upon his premises for any lawful purpose, he is liable in damages to such persons for injuries caused by his failure to exercise ordinary care in keeping the premises and approaches safe.”

The law is designed to protect people who enter a business or property and are injured by another person who was invited. However, property owners also are responsible for safety measures to keep the uninvited out.

Past rulings since the 1990s have also defined this liability to be founded upon the foreseeability of harm, But those definitions aren’t clear to businessowners.

The law has landed many businesses and their insurance companies in court, paying millions of dollars. Even if a business and its insurance company do not feel they are liable for an injury, many are settling out of court because that cost to settle could be smaller than what a jury might award.

Another issue industry experts believe is driving up the cost of litigation is third-party litigation financing, where entities advance money to plaintiffs (victims) in a lawsuit to fund the litigation costs of suing. These entities include privately held companies, publicly traded companies, and hedge funds and are not required to be disclosed in court.

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