Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed the tort reform bills he had championed throughout the 2025 legislative session on Monday.
The two bills, SB 68 and 69, passed state congress on March 21 and 31 respectively and now they are signed into law.
According to the governor, the point of the reform is to stabilize insurance costs for businesses and consumers.
Kemp has said the reform will look to strike a balance between businesses who may be held liable and those who are wronged and take their issues to civil court.
"Today is a victory for the people of our state who for too long were suffering the impacts of an out-of-balance legal environment," Kemp said.
Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones said that the bills will tackle “hidden costs” that Georgians have been paying.
"These bills ensure that we put Georgia families and consumers first by tackling the hidden costs we have all been paying thanks to Georgia’s current tort laws," Jones said.
The specifics of the legislation includes reevaluating the standard for negligent security liability. This ensures businesses are only liable for what they can directly control.
It also includes truthful calculations of medical damages in personal injury cases and eliminates arbitrarily describing pain caused to a jury.
Other key aspects include allowing the jury to know whether a plaintiff was wearing a seatbelt, eliminating the double recovery of attorney’s fees loophole, and banning hostile foreign adversaries from funding litigation to obtain trade secrets or advance a political interest.
