Dan Walters: 'Tort war' could hit the California Capitol

Last year, the state Supreme Court interjected itself – in a big way – into the perennial "tort war" that pits personal injury lawyers against insurance companies and business groups over the arcane rules of liability lawsuits.

Both the courts and the Legislature play roles in deciding who can sue and collect money from whom over injurious acts.

Last August, the Supreme Court, by a 6-1 ruling, imposed limits on how medical damages could be calculated in auto accidents and other personal injury cases.

The issue in the case (Howell v. Hamilton Meats) was whether the injured party could collect the full medical bills imposed by doctors, hospitals and other medical care providers, or would be limited to the amounts actually paid by insurers, which are often pennies on the dollar.

The case, stemming from a 2005 collision in San Diego County, involved $200,000 in medical bills that were whittled down to $60,000 before payment.

The trial judge decreed that only the smaller amount need be paid, while an appellate court said it should be the full amount, and several other pending cases had conflicting appellate court decisions, so the issue was kicked upstairs to the Supreme Court.

Its widely watched ruling hit personal injury lawyers in their wallets but elated insurers, who had said an adverse outcome would have cost them, and their policyholders, another $3 billion a year.

And that's where the Legislature enters.

Consumer Attorneys of California, the lobbying arm of personal injury lawyers, has made no secret that it wants legislation to counteract the Supreme Court decree. And if, as widely expected, the lawyers pursue that goal this year, it sets up another in a decades-long string of high-dollar political shootouts between the perpetually warring groups.

In the days leading up to the Legislature's return to Sacramento, there were a number of private discussions among lobbyists over what form the lawyers' drive would take and at least some talk of a deal in which the lawyer lobby would drop it in return for some other change in tort law that would make other kinds of lawsuits more lucrative.

Unless there is such a deal – which appears unlikely – the chances are high for an election-year clash, with the Legislature's liberal Democrats siding with lawyers, Republicans backing insurers and a handful of moderate Democrats, plus Gov. Jerry Brown, having the final say on what does or doesn't happen.

Inevitably, such a clash would spill over into campaigns for the Legislature, which will be conducted in newly drawn districts with the added ingredient of a new "top-two" primary system that could result in liberal and moderate Democrats facing each other in November runoffs.

It's a yeasty mixture of politics and money, to say the least.