Copyright 1999 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune
The Tampa Tribune
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April 23, 1999, Friday, FINAL EDITION
SECTION: FLORIDA/METRO, Pg. 1
LENGTH: 729 words
HEADLINE:
Potshots ping 2 players in tort reform;
BYLINE: WILLIAM MARCH, of The Tampa Tribune;
BODY:
TAMPA - Attacks on a state senator
and local lawyer are signs the fight over tort reform is getting hot.
Tort reform may be an obscure issue to many Floridians, but it means
hundreds of millions of dollars to some of the state's most powerful
industries.
As the legislative session hits crunch time, the stakes are
high and the game is rough.
Two Tampa Bay area figures on opposite sides
in the fight, state Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Palm Harbor, and trial lawyer Jim
Wilkes, are among those showing battle scars. This week, someone anonymously
sent reporters a packet of documents accusing Latvala of having a conflict
of interest in dealing with tort reform, based on his financial link to a
lobbyist involved in the issue.
Latvala says the accusation, based
on facts long part of the public record, is spurious.
Wilkes, a
prosperous lawyer specializing in lawsuits against nursing homes, is the target
of an advertising campaign paid for by a nursing home trade group.
"There's a new mean-spiritedness that I've not seen before" in the
politicking over tort reform, Wilkes said.
Tort reform means
changes in state laws concerning civil lawsuits over damages and injuries.
Businesses say they want protection from frivolous lawsuits and
outrageously huge jury awards. Consumer activists and trial lawyers say
the reforms businesses want would strip ordinary citizens of protections
against reckless practices by businesses.
It's hard to overestimate the
amount of money at stake.
The money explains the heat of the battle,
said antitort reform lobbyist Rocky Pennington. Citing one example, he
said, "Look at Boeing Co. iIf they can get immunity (from lawsuits resulting
from defects in airplanes) after 12 years, that's huge bucks."
Pro-tort reform lobbyist Steve Metz said the battle is hot because it
pits two of the most powerful, sophisticated lobbying groups against each
other: lawyers and industrialists.
The attack on Latvala concerns a
Clearwater postal advertising business, Direct Mail Services, which he
founded and then sold in 1997 to Pennington, who previously had been a minority
stockholder in the company.
Pennington is still paying for the $
570,000 purchase, and Latvala holds a note for the debt.
The anonymous
attack charges that "the influence on Senator Latvala of Roger (Rocky)
Pennington" is the reason that progress on the tort reform bills have
stalled.
There is disagreement between the House, with a tough bill, and
the Senate, with a more moderate one. Latvala represents the Senate in the
negotiations.
"Our only relationship is I owe him a lot of money,"
Pennington said. "I paid the value of the company."
Far from
siding with tort reform opponents, Pennington said, Latvala has been "the
biggest thorn in my side ... Our friendship has been strained. I think
he's leaning more toward business than the consumer."
Latvala said
his financial dealings with Pennington have no influence on their legislative
work. When tort reform passed in 1998, only to be vetoed by Gov. Lawton
Chiles, he played the same role, moving the Senate "toward the House
position," Latvala said.
The attacks on Wilkes concern the Coalition for
America's Elders, a group he founded and funds, which holds seminars on
choosing a nursing home.
Wilkes is despised by nursing home operators
for his record of suing - "a bully who pushes regulators, criticizes the
industry or anybody who suggests there are better ways to improve the
system than lawsuits," said Ed Towey, spokesman for the Florida Health
Care Association, the state's main nursing home trade group.
In a
$ 75,000 advertising campaign, the association charged that Wilkes' coalition
is, in Towey's words, "a front group" for trial lawyers seeking clients.
Towey acknowledged that the attacks were in part political - "to show
legislators that the industry and the profession is not afraid to stand up
and challenge a bully."
Wilkes, who is politically active, said the
attack is aimed at blunting his clout in Tallahassee.
"It's sad
they're spending the money the state and federal government gave them to take
care of residents, to attack somebody."
Wilkes said the Coalition
for America's Elders isn't political, and he has never tried to hide his
role as its founder and benefactor.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO (C),
(C) State Sen. Jack Latvala denies he has a conflict of interest.
LOAD-DATE: April 24, 1999 
