TALLAHASSEE — Rep. Jeff Kottkamp broke ranks last spring and became the only Republican state House member to vote against a law to help shield big companies from costly lawsuits.
His move, while politically daring, also was personal.
Kottkamp, a trial lawyer and now the running mate of Republican candidate for governor Charlie Crist, is embroiled in a combative lawsuit against two companies whose negligence he contends almost killed him.
Kottkamp hovered close to death two years ago, after a devastating mold infection developed in his chest following heart-bypass surgery.
But Kottkamp isn’t suing the doctors or hospital, whose financial liability would be limited in the case. Instead, he is targeting a multibillion-dollar building firm, contending its shoddy work allowed the mold into the hospital. In a strange political twist, Kottkamp is using legal tactics that Florida’s Republican-ruled Legislature have railed against and struggled to stamp out.
“This looks like the type of far-fetched lawsuit Republicans in Florida have been trying to stop the past eight years,” said Victor Schwartz, general counsel for the American Tort Reform Association, which has guided civil-justice changes in Florida.
Schwartz warned that the case also may foreshadow what Florida business groups quietly fear: that a Crist administration could slam the brakes on the state’s drive to limit lawsuits — a campaign spearheaded by outgoing Gov. Jeb Bush.
“Now you’ve got a trial lawyer on the ticket with a tort case pending,” Schwartz said. “That’s very unusual.”
Fighting for life
With his wife about to give birth to the couple’s first child, Kottkamp, a Lee County legislator, spent almost two months in hospitals during the summer of 2004 fighting for his life.
On July 16, Kottkamp underwent extensive heart-bypass surgery. Although the procedure initially went well, as Kottkamp was being discharged from the hospital, he passed out and was kept another day.
Once home, a home health-care nurse noticed his surgical wound was red and sore. Back at the hospital, doctors soon reopened Kottkamp’s chest and discovered mold — beginning a series of 20 surgeries.
His wife, Cyndie, struggled not only with the closing weeks of her pregnancy, but also with the prospect her husband would die, causing her “tremendous stress and complications,” Kottkamp said.
His treatment was torturous. At one point, he was placed in a medically induced coma while doctors scraped infected tissue from his chest and removed part of his sternum. Kottkamp vividly recalls the pain and mourns the time lost to his family. But he downplays the experience’s effect on him politically.
“Has it affected my view of life and strength in my faith? It sure has,” said Kottkamp, 45, speaking at length for the first time about his experience since joining Crist’s ticket. “But has it affected my view of the legal system? Not really.”
In a potentially multimillion-dollar claim filed in August 2005, Kottkamp is suing a worldwide construction company and its subcontractor, claiming they failed to clean up adequately after a massive water leak occurred at Fort Myers’ Health Park Medical Center. The conditions spawned the mold that tore through his chest, the suit alleges.
Doctors and the publicly funded hospital so far have not been included in Kottkamp’s lawsuit. Liability limits in state law already protect public hospitals against paying damages that top $250,000 per incident, unless legislation is approved allowing a larger award.
So obtaining a big payout from the hospital would be complex. But Kottkamp’s attorney says that isn’t why the suit is aimed at a heavily insured builder, noting the hospital could still be brought into the case.
“It’s still pretty early,” said Edward Blumberg, a Miami lawyer. “At this point, I don’t want to rule anything out.”
The attorney for Bovis Lend Lease, a construction and project-management company with 2005 revenues of $7.1 billion based in Australia, said the case is rife with “contradictions.”
“Clearly, the way [Kottkamp] has positioned this case, he will be seeking millions of dollars in damages,” said Jim Kaplan, a Miami corporate lawyer. “He is looking to benefit from the tort system that he and the Republican Legislature have tried to tinker with.”
Bovis was hired as the general contractor to oversee construction work in the roof, walls and other areas of Health Park Medical Center, after major water leaks in June or July 2004, according to Kottkamp’s lawsuit. Bovis brought in a local company, Crowther Roofing and Sheet Metal, to do much of the repairs.
A GOP renegade
The soft-spoken Kottkamp already is a Republican renegade, as an attorney with one of the state’s largest personal-injury law firms, Orlando-based Morgan & Morgan. With polls showing Crist comfortably ahead of Democrat Jim Davis in the Nov. 7 governor’s race, Kottkamp could emerge as an influential figure in the next administration.
Prodded by Bush, Florida’s ruling Republicans have dueled steadily with the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers during his two terms, successfully defeating the powerful legal organization and its allied consumer groups in approving strict new restrictions on product-liability, medical-malpractice, negligence and personal-injury lawsuits.
But perhaps the pinnacle of these new limits occurred last year — with the legislation that Kottkamp voted against but the Legislature ultimately approved and Bush signed into law.
The law eliminated the long-established legal doctrine of joint and several liability. The principle says a wealthy company can be forced to pay most or all the damages awarded to someone hurt in an accident, even if the company is only partially to blame.
The Kottkamp suit, however, was filed before joint and several was outlawed, so either of the two companies — or perhaps others brought into the suit — could be forced to pay a huge award.
Rep. Jack Seiler, a Wilton Manors Democrat and trial lawyer, said he considers himself a friend of Kottkamp. But he said the case points to a conflict common to efforts aimed at limiting the right of victims to sue.
“What happened to Jeff can happen to anybody,” Seiler said. “But it always seems like everyone is all for capping damage awards until something happens to you or a family member.”
Businesses, however, contend that joint and several liability encouraged lawsuits that forced companies to run up huge legal bills defending themselves in court. But lawyers warn that without it, innocent victims or taxpayers will be forced to cover medical bills themselves — or turn to public assistance.
Kottkamp agrees with the lawyers.
“I just have a real hard time with the idea of shifting unpaid medical expenses onto the taxpayers,” Kottkamp said. “That will be the result of this. You’re talking about catastrophically injured people, and somebody has to pay for the medical expenses.”
Trial lawyers back Crist
Crist, the state’s attorney general, has said he is open to legislation allowing corporations more safeguards against lawsuits.
Even so, Crist has already collected thousands of dollars in contributions from some of the state’s largest trial-lawyer firms. And Kottkamp’s addition to the ticket is expected to draw even more support from trial lawyers.
State law requires that Kottkamp leave the law firm if elected lieutenant governor. But it wouldn’t be Kottkamp’s first career shift.
Before joining Morgan, Kottkamp worked 17 years as an attorney defending corporations that had been sued in personal-injury cases. He also had been an advocate of tort reform, unsuccessfully sponsoring legislation that would have given businesses more protection from accidents on their premises.
“Jeff had always been a consistent vote for tort reform until last year,” said Mark Wilson, a vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which has backed the Legislature’s civil-justice changes. “He changed. But is it because he worked for a big trial-attorney firm, because of his personal experience, or just didn’t like the way it was passed?”
But Wilson said he also has confidence that a new Republican administration would continue listening to Florida’s business agenda.
“If Charlie Crist is elected, and he says we’re going to do more tort reform, we’re going to do it,” he said. “You’ve got to remember, the lieutenant governor doesn’t set the agenda for the next administration.”
