Miami Herald Logo

Legislators target ‘renegade’ law firm with bill to limit lawsuits | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

State

Legislators target ‘renegade’ law firm with bill to limit lawsuits

By Mary Ellen Klas

    ORDER REPRINT →

March 18, 2014 07:38 PM

Jim Wilkes has a target on his back.

The Tampa-based trial lawyer whose success at suing nursing homes for neglect and abuse of residents has drawn millions in damages from the industry.

It has also brought their wrath — and they’ve turned to the Florida Legislature to stop him. 

Wilkes’ model, which has been successfully employed in Florida and eight states where he has offices, is to not only target the owners and management companies — which can often be shell companies that shield the assets of owners and investors — but to target the investors, vendors and contractors, when he can show they have a role in the company’s decision-making. He also seeks large punitive damages.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

In Polk County, where a nursing home shut down its management company after Wilkes sued, he won a $1 billion judgment in 2012 when the company didn’t put up a defense. In Pinellas County, a jury awarded $200 million to the family of a nursing home patient who died of neglect.

“They keep putting companies in bankruptcy and transferring assets, and we follow the assets and now the courts are able to go up the ladder,’’ said Wilkes, 63.

The result, the industry says, is having a chilling effect on investment income into nursing homes in Florida — at a time when older nursing homes want to update and retrofit in preparation for a surge in growth with the aging of baby boomers.

“He’s been very effective at stopping the flow of money into Florida. People are scared,’’ said J. Emmett Reed, executive director of the Florida Health Care Association, which represents the industry. “With the baby-boomers coming into Florida, we need more money for long term care, not less.”

The bills, SB 670 and HB 569, advancing through the House and Senate, would stop Wilkes’ strategy in Florida by preventing “passive investors” from being named in a lawsuit unless a court determines they have had an active role.

“It is impossible to completely hide all of your assets,’’ Reed said. “This doesn’t make it any easier or harder to get sued as a direct care giver. This is simply protection for the passive investor.’’

Wilkes contends the bill is written too broadly to describe who is considered a passive investor and restricts discovery in such a way that it will make it more difficult to persuade a judge that there is a link between the investor and the nursing home.

It would seem to be a convincing argument, except few are convinced. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted out its bill 8-1 on Tuesday and the House Civil Justice Subcommittee approved its version 10-3 last week.

The Florida Justice Association — the organization that represents trial lawyers to which Wilkes is not a member — has signed onto the legislation, after fighting similar proposals for the three previous sessions.

In return, it won new language that will make it easier for residents of nursing homes, and their relatives and lawyers, to get documents without having to establish an estate.

Wilkes says the trade-off is for trial lawyers to file more frequent lawsuits that produce smaller settlements, while the industry gets a stronger shield against reporting how it spends its money. The Florida Justice Association denies that is its goal.

“It’s commendable that the trial lawyers and the nursing home industry came together and concluded this is something they could agree on,” said Sen. Arthenia Joyner, D-Tampa, the lone no vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee. But she concluded, “it’s a deal and people make deals that benefit them.”

Nursing homes in Florida receive more than 90 percent of their revenues from state and federal funds, either through payments from Medicaid and Medicare. Wilkes contends the investment companies have found nursing home management so profitable that they don’t want regulators to interfere by forcing greater disclosure of their management structure that relies on real estate leases and a constant churning of ownership.

“If you don’t have transparency you can’t accurately reimburse,’’ he warned. “The ability to contain medical costs will evaporate.’’

He also scoffs at the claim that investors are scared away from Florida. One of the largest nursing home investors in the state, Formation Capital, on Monday announced it had sold its health care portfolio — 35 percent of which is in Florida — for $1 billion.

“If all they’re doing is investing they don’t have any liability,’’ he said. “We’d never sue somebody who is just a lender — we’d be thrown out of court. This bill is designed to protect the shady investor.”

The AARP of Florida, which represents elders in Florida, sides with the trial lawyers and has agreed to the bill.

Joining Wilkes is Families for Better Care, a non-profit that advocates for senior rights and is heavily funded by Wilkes. With them is the National Organization for Women Florida Chapter, the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, and union groups representing the health care workers in nursing homes.

The nursing home industry, which has been seeking a version of this bill for years, spent $2.4 million on political campaigns in 2012 and has contributed another $903,000 on legislative campaigns so far this cycle.

Wilkes and McHugh, by contrast, have given $18,000 this election cycle to legislative campaigns, including $14,000 in December to the political committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon.

The target of the bill is so well-known that Reed, of the Florioda Health Care Association, told the Associated Press: “What this does is isolate one renegade law firm — Wilkes.”

Marie Hagen, a nurse at Brynwood Center nursing home in Monticello, Fla, told a House committee that Wilkes’ tactics were harassing her nursing home and “take an emotional toll on staff morale.” Hagen’s nursing home had never even been sued by Wilkes and McHugh.

Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said Tuesday he was confident the bill won’t hurt anyone, but will add clarity to the law.

“If I thought for one minute this bill was detrimental to anybody in my district who is in a nursing home, I wouldn’t vote for it,’’ he said.

He noted that Wilkes “is involved in massive, massive litigation” and said that “to suggest that anybody put any pressure on anybody in this room is absolutely incorrect and a misguided statement.”

Wilkes believes the courts will have the final say. “I think it would be declared unconstitutional,’’ he said.

The inability to do effective discovery will result in denying access to the court, he said, and the treatment of nursing home residents differently than anyone else who is harmed from neglect or abuse will be found to violate the equal protection rights of the Constitution.

“They’re not afraid of me,’’ said Wilkes. “They’re afraid of exposure.”

  Comments  

Videos

Brick-throwing bandit fails to break into Florida gas station

Police dashcam video shows pursuit of stolen community watch vehicle

View More Video

Trending Stories

Haitian police arrest five Americans who claimed they were on a ‘government mission’

February 18, 2019 06:37 PM

Man arrested after climbing crane near FIU to ask Trump for mercy for Cuban exile bomber

February 18, 2019 08:44 AM

A Florida 6th-grader called the Pledge of Allegiance ‘racist.’ Then he got arrested.

February 18, 2019 08:59 AM

Double vision: Miami will host Miami in future football game

February 18, 2019 06:36 PM

Here’s why the Dolphins will avoid dummies more than ever. And coaches weigh in on new QB

February 18, 2019 02:07 PM

Read Next

Lawsuit accuses Florida Dept. of Corrections of multimillion-dollar digital media scam

Florida

Lawsuit accuses Florida Dept. of Corrections of multimillion-dollar digital media scam

By David J. Neal

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 19, 2019 10:44 AM

A federal class action lawsuit claims the Florida Dept. of Corrections stole millions of dollars of legally purchased digital music and books from prisoners after striking a deal with a new digital media vendor.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE STATE

‘#MeToo’ sprayed on Unconditional Surrender statue. Police are looking for vandal

Latest News

‘#MeToo’ sprayed on Unconditional Surrender statue. Police are looking for vandal

February 19, 2019 09:41 AM
Florida military bases could lose up to $177 million to Trump’s border wall

Latest News

Florida military bases could lose up to $177 million to Trump’s border wall

February 19, 2019 08:09 AM
A Florida cellphone seller owes workers $27,000 in back pay after various violations

Business

A Florida cellphone seller owes workers $27,000 in back pay after various violations

February 19, 2019 06:59 AM
An acupuncturist’s license is suspended after teenage patient says he raped her

Florida

An acupuncturist’s license is suspended after teenage patient says he raped her

February 18, 2019 08:39 AM
A Florida 6th-grader called the Pledge of Allegiance ‘racist.’ Then he got arrested.

Florida

A Florida 6th-grader called the Pledge of Allegiance ‘racist.’ Then he got arrested.

February 18, 2019 08:59 AM
The warning label on laser said ‘Never aim at aircraft.’ Florida man ignored it, cops say

Florida

The warning label on laser said ‘Never aim at aircraft.’ Florida man ignored it, cops say

February 17, 2019 06:23 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story