Builders Say Lawsuits Plague Florida Construction Industry

Last month, Florida lawmakers passed tort reform legislation by extending COVID-19 liability protection to businesses and health care providers, but Florida’s construction industry says they’re facing a form of lawsuit abuse that lawmakers failed to address.

Florida’s homebuilders say lawmakers missed a crucial opportunity to boost the construction industry by adopting House Bill 21 or its companion, Senate Bill 270, both of which died in committee late in the session.

The bills, sponsored by State Representative Alex Andrade and State Senator Keith Perry, died in committee, thanks in part to a massive lobbying effort by trial lawyers to kill the bills.

The proposed legislation was targeted toward fixing a loophole that allows opportunistic trial attorneys to broadly target subcontractors that worked on the specific areas of the home through a so-called ‘558’ claim.

When a contractor receives an overly broad 558 claim, that contractor is required under the loophole to pass the claim to every subcontractor that worked in the immediate area of a construction project.