BY BOBBY HARRISON

Daily Journal Jackson Bureau

JACKSON - Even agreeing on a name is difficult for the opposing sides.

Tort reform has been the moniker used for years to identify the issue. But tort is a legal term not familiar to the average person. Thus, some have adopted the term civil justice reform.

But reform, according to Webster's, means to change something for the better. Ask any trial attorney and he or she will answer quickly that changes in the civil justice system proposed by doctors and business groups are not for the betterment of the state.

Those same doctors and business groups, though, will counter that changes are critical for Mississippi's progress. What's needed, they say, are fewer attorneys filing lawsuits and winning large jury verdicts against doctors and businesses.

That has been the growing debate for several months. Mississippi has been cited by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine and other publications as having a particularly bad legal climate. Trial attorneys counter that it is a massive, misleading public relations campaign designed to take away Mississippians' legitimate right to correct wrongs through the courts.

Through the rhetoric, which includes often contradictory statements of the facts, it is difficult to find a middle ground. And if anything, the debate appears to be intensifying.

"Tort reform in my view is clearly a legitimate public policy issue,'' said Blake Wilson, president of the Mississippi Economic Council, a statewide business group that supports changes. "But finding the path to addressing tort reform is a little like finding the Holy Grail.''

Business groups and doctors say they have found that path. But getting the Legislature - and even the courts - to agree to follow that path could be difficult.

Even Wilson recognizes that the business community and doctors might not get everything they want in a Legislature that has been reluctant to address the issue and from Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, who seems poised to move slowly on any changes.

Long-term conflict

"There is continuous tension between the plaintiffs of the world (who file lawsuits) and the defendants of the world,'' said Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory. "It crops up every so often as tort reform because that is a catchy title. But the tension between defendants and plaintiffs is always there.

"There are those defendants of the world who think saying anything to make it more difficult to get a jury verdict (in favor of the plaintiff) is an end unto itself. There are those plaintiffs of the world who think saying anything to win a jury verdict is an end unto itself.''

Bryan said it is up to him and other legislators to sort through the rhetoric and determine what needs to be done. A special joint committee formed by House Speaker Tim Ford, D-Baldwyn, and Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, the presiding officer of the Senate, is currently holding hearings on the issue and plans a report in August.

Musgrove has said he intends to call a special session of the Legislature in August to address the skyrocketing cost of medical malpractice insurance. Doctors and others claim the high rates are caused by numerous large jury verdicts since 1995.

Trial attorneys and others counter that the increase in rates is the result of insurance companies either losing money or making less than expected in the stock market.

The governor has said he will include broader civil justice issues in the special session if the joint legislative study committee can reach a consensus. Musgrove has said he would sign into law civil justice changes that reach his desk but has not been specific about what he supports or opposes.

The governor did veto legislation in the 2002 regular session that provided banks and other lending institutions some lawsuit protection from making certain "false, misleading, deceptive or fraudulent'' loans.

At one point in the session, the governor also questioned the practice of numerous out-of-state plaintiffs being included in a lawsuit against large corporations in rural Mississippi counties that are perceived because of past verdicts to be anti-business.

Business dislikes joinder

"Joinder" is the word used to describe the merger of several similar lawsuits into one. The practice has been used to file and win large lawsuits against drug companies in Jefferson County in southwest Mississippi. The way it works is for a resident of a particular county to file a lawsuit against the local drug store where the drug was purchased and against the large national drug company. Then through the joinder rule other plaintiffs throughout the nation can be added in what is believed to be a friendly venue for them.

Business groups say the joinder rule allows the worst kind of jury shopping.

"There is no certainty about what can happen to your business in a Mississippi courtroom when your opponent can join thousands of plaintiffs from around the country against you,'' said Lex Taylor, vice president of Taylor Machine Works of Louisville and chairman of Mississippians for Economic Progress, a coalition of business people, associations, doctors and others working for civil justice changes.

But Shane Langston of Jackson, past president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association, said the joinder rule, which is used in most states, is an efficient method of moving numerous similar cases through the civil justice system.

Caps not liked by trial lawyers

Changing the joinder rule and stopping what business groups describe as the practice of shopping for friendly juries are not the only changes proposed. Mississippians for Economic Progress and others also want to cap punitive damages awarded to those who sue and non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.

The caps are described as critical to helping the state's business climate and slowing the increases in medical malpractice insurance costs forcing many Mississippi doctors to retire or leave the state.

The complaint that trial lawyers take up to 50 percent of the awarded jury verdict is regularly cited by Mississippians for Economic Progress.

"That is why I think there is little room for compromise (on the issue of caps) because it is money coming directly out of some of these people's pockets,'' said David Clark of Jackson, a defense attorney.

Caps, trial attorneys say, are a bad thing because what may be considered a large cap in one case would not be significant for a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Langston says caps have not resulted in lower rates for medical malpractice insurance in other states. Plus, caps, Langston said, penalize the poor, or even stay-at-home mothers, whose low earnings automatically reduce the amount of economic damages - or lost income - they can recoup.

The business community also wants the law changed so that a business would be responsible only for the percent of the damage that it was found responsible for causing.

"We have an out of control system,'' Taylor said. "If nothing is done, the economic progress of this state has been and will be stifled.''

Langston countered, "It is not a perfect system, but it works."