Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has signed into law new legislation called “a gift” for trial lawyers, that business advocates had warned will hammer hospitals, doctors, manufacturers and other Illinois businesses with potentially massive added costs from lawsuits.
On Friday, May 28, in the final moments of business before the start of the first long summer holiday weekend of 2021, Pritzker signed his name to Senate Bill 72.
The signing was announced quietly late on Friday afternoon.
At the same time, state lawmakers were in the state capitol in Springfield, approving on partisan lines new legislative district maps that Democrats say better represent the state’s racial diversity, but Republicans and others say simply serves to seek to expand the General Assembly’s already robust Democratic supermajority.
The General Assembly’s Democratic majority passed SB72 in March.
The legislation would allow plaintiffs in lawsuits accusing hospitals, health care providers and other businesses and defendants of personal injuries or wrongful death to collect interest calculated from the time the lawsuit was filed, not just from the time judgment was entered.
Under longstanding Illinois law, personal injury plaintiffs generally were not allowed to collect such interest, for losses they may have incurred before the case headed to court.
Supporters of the legislation, including Illinois trial lawyers and Democratic state lawmakers, said the measure was needed to help encourage settlements of lawsuits, rather than protracted court fights, they said are waged by large corporate defendants and other well-capitalized defendants to wear plaintiffs down and discourage injury claims.
However, the measure represented a compromise from an earlier version of legislation dealing with the same subject. Under the legislation known as House Bill 3660 – which had also been approved by both houses of the Illinois General Assembly – the state would have allowed plaintiffs to collect 9% prejudgment interest, calculated from the time the court determined the defendant first became aware an injury had occurred.
HB3660 had represented “nothing more than a shakedown of Illinois employers and a sop to personal injury lawyers,” said American Tort Reform Association President Tiger Joyce in a statement following passage of HB3660 in January.
Trial lawyers have historically been among the most generous and loyal of donors to Illinois’ Democratic party, and were particularly friendly with former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan.
New Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch is also a lawyer, by profession.
Despite changes made to the law in SB72, the law still drew sharp opposition from business groups, who said the new law would still threaten the state’s already shaky economy.
Robert W. Panton, the president of the Illinois Medical Society, which speaks on behalf of many of the state’s doctors, for instance, said SB72 would create “a wholly new form of ‘punitive’ damages not previously allowed in Illinois.”
He and others predicted the new law will balloon the financial risk faced by businesses of all kinds from lawsuits, driving up costs throughout Illinois and making the state even more inhospitable for business.
After Pritzker signed the new law, Mark Denzler, president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, and an outspoken critic of SB72, tweeted:
“On a Friday night, of a holiday weekend, @GovPritzker signed a horrible bill into law adding prejudgment interest on lawsuits. This is after the initial bill passed at 2:30 a.m. on the very last day of the lame duck session. You know its (sic) bad idea when they try & hide their actions.”