A familiar fight returns to the Senate: Litigation reform legislation. Representative Richard Byrd of Kirkwood is the sponsor of the tort reform bill, the third straight year that he has proposed such legislation. Byrd argues that jury awards must be curbed because those awards drive up medical malpractice insurance premiums and drive doctors from the state. Critics of tort reform say too little attention has been paid to the practice of insurance companies, and too much to the jury awards handed down in medical malpractice cases. The Senate committee has altered a House bill and sent it to the full Senate for debate.
