Line Item In Doylersquos Budget Would Raise Liabilities For Businesses 2009: Southeastern Wisconsin

Line item in Doylersquos budget would raise liabilities for businesses

Southeastern Wisconsin financial service industry news.
A line item in Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle’s 2009-2011 state budget could drastically change the outcome of civil court cases in the state and may greatly endanger the state’s small to medium sized businesses, opponents to the change say. “If you’re a manufacturer of a bicycle and someone is injured on that bike&hellip and if the (jury) finds the bike company 1 percent responsible, they can be required to pay 100 percent of damages,” said Bob Fassbender, spokesman for the Wisconsin Civil Justice Council Inc. (WCJC). The council was formed to represent Wisconsin employers facing litigation. “This (legislation) is after deep pockets &ndash manufacturers and other businesses &ndash which plaintiff lawyers will attempt to find, to find someone a little bit responsible so they can get those deep pockets into court and get a settlement,” Fassbender said. Bill Smith, state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), said that if the state’s provision for joint and several liability is changed, it will present two significant problems to the state’s business community. “This could make every Main Street business vulnerable to lawsuits and it destroys the predictability we want to have in our civil justice system,” Smith said. “This restores unpredictability in our state &ndash it puts every small business in jeopardy of being caught in a lawsuit.” The change will cause raise insurance premiums, both Smith and Andrew Franken, president of the Wisconsin Insurance Alliance, said.
“Back in 1995, a lot of changes were made that brought more sanity to our (legal) climate in Wisconsin,” Franken said. “This turns the clock back, which will jeopardize every manufacturer, church or charity that will be subject to lawsuits that go down to one percent of occurrence.”

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