http://nypost.com/2025/11/16/opinion/hochul-should-veto-the-lawsuit-boosting-bills-that-will-cost-new-yorkers-big/
By Post Editorial Board
New York Post
Published Nov. 16, 2025
News that a Bronx jury awarded $50 million to a guy clipped by a city garbage truck as he was crossing the street while on his cellphone is just the latest sign of how out-of-whack New York’s liability laws are — and they’re about to get even worse unless Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoes a pack of lawsuit-boosting bills headed for her desk.
This legal regime is actually a huge affordability issue: Juries often figure the insurance company can afford to pay big, but insurers then just raise their rates so that everyone winds up covering the costs of insane payouts.
It may well be that Darcy Bottex deserves compensation for that 2021 garbage truck incident: He says it inflicted injuries that have left him unable to work ever since.
But $50 million is nuts, especially since he shares at least some blame: Gabbing on your phone as you cross a major avenue like Bruckner Boulevard is pretty foolish.
Yet the Legislature, instead of looking at reforms to cap damages in a case like this, has sent the governor several bills that encourage frivolous lawsuits and fraud.
A report from the American Tort Reform Association last year lists NYC as the nation’s 2nd-worst “judicial hellhole,” with $89 billion a year in excessive litigation costs to taxpayers and companies .
The Partnership for New York City breaks it down further: Insurance premiums in New York average 15% higher than the rest of the country; health-insurance premiums are 12% higher, auto coverage a whopping 52% higher.
Democratic state Sens. Jamaal Bailey, Brian Kavanagh and James Skoufis are holding a public hearing this week to “investigate” these high insurance costs, when the cause is abundantly clear: Higher risks of being sued for insane damages means higher insurance premiums across the board.
And Skoufis actually wants to make it worse: His Senate Bill S5170, would allow a plaintiff to recover damages directly from a third-party defendant, meaning people who did little or nothing wrong are at elevated risk of having to make good on someone else’s wrongdoing.
The other bills laws slated to hit Hochul’s desk before the end of the year are just as poisonous, among them:
* Bill S8186 would force foreign corporations wanting to do business in the Empire State to consent to “automatic jurisdiction,” exposing them to suits in New York courts regardless of where the key incident took place.
* The “Grieving Families Act” (vetoed by Hochul three years running) would dramatically expand liability for damages in wrongful death cases, giving plaintiffs up to three years to file a suit and widening the scope of who can sue.
* Bill A8706 would ban companies or individuals from negotiating a settlement with an injured party until 30 days after the event — giving potential suers more time to hire a lawyer, even though plenty of settlements can be sorted out without one.
The big winners if any of this becomes law will be the trial lawyers who rake in piles of cash off even the most dubious lawsuits; everybody else will pay through the nose.
Democrats keep talking about what government should do to increase “affordability,” but lawmakers increase living costs with lunacy like this.
Hochul should reject these latest gifts to skeezy lawyers, or New Yorkers will pay the price.
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