Senate stalls medical-malpractice ‘pre-litigation’ bill after extended debate over fees, records and access to court

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Senate spent a lengthy floor session Feb. 11 wrestling with a bill that would tighten rules for pre-litigation screening panels in medical-malpractice claims and impose financial penalties when panels find complaints not meritorious.

Senator Lane Beatty, sponsor of Senate Bill 74, told senators the pre-litigation panels — composed of an attorney, a physician or health-care administrator and a layperson — have reduced litigation and helped screen weak claims. “The bottom line of this is that in all unmeritorious claims that are filed, something like 80% . . . two thirds are found to never have merit,” Beatty said, summarizing committee testimony that most nonmeritorious cases never recover damages.

SB74 would require both sides to submit defined documentation to panels, set explicit time frames for proceedings, and tighten definitions of a “meritorious” claim (standard of care breach, injury, and reasonable expectation of prevailing at trial). The bill also creates a judicial step after a panel finds a claim meritorious: a judge would review submitted information, set a fair-compensation figure and give parties 14 days to accept; if a panel finds a claim not meritorious and the court later awards no cause of action, the statute permits the court to award the defendant the lesser of reasonable costs and attorney fees or $5,000, and makes the plaintiff and counsel jointly and severally liable for imposed costs.

Proponents argued SB74 is intended to put responsibility on attorneys and clients who pursue weak claims and to deter frivolous suits that consume considerable court and professional resources. Beatty said the bill “puts more teeth into this law” to ensure attorneys adequately prepare cases for the panel stage.

Opponents raised constitutional and practical concerns. Senator Hennig, speaking as an experienced trial lawyer, challenged several provisions: he warned the bill’s $5,000 cap on recoverable costs could limit existing remedies under court Rule 11 and that excluding some provider types (dentists are left out) raises equal-protection questions. He flagged a provision that “a record may not be made of the proceedings” as problematic, saying absence of a panel record would make later judicial review and fairness harder to assure. “If you're gonna be fair about it,” Hennig said, medical records and timing of releases should be handled so both sides can respond; he also warned the bill risks violating open-courts protections under the state constitution.

Other senators pressed on practical effects: whether indigent plaintiffs could realistically bear the $5,000 exposure; whether mandatory releases and timing unfairly advantage respondents who could obtain the petitioner’s full medical records; and how judges would apply the statute in practice. Beatty said judges would remove themselves from panels when assigned and that meritorious findings could still proceed to full court adjudication.

After extended questioning and floor discussion, sponsors and critics agreed more time was needed to review drafting and constitutional issues. The sponsor asked to continue work over the weekend and hold the item for further consideration; no final vote on SB74 was taken that day. The bill remained under consideration for future floor action.

Next steps: senators said they expect continued work on SB74, with possible holdover for committee and drafting clarifications before any final passage vote.