A committee set up to oppose a November ballot proposal to limit attorneys' fees and noneconomic damages in medical lawsuits continued to receive large donations from Arkansas law firms in August, according to campaign financial reports filed Thursday.
The Committee to Protect AR Families reported 54 separate monetary donations totaling $409,832 in August, the second month the group disclosed contributions and expenses in a report to the Arkansas Ethics Commission. However, one donation of $100,000 was a repeat of an earlier one given in error in July.
The committee was established in July by nursing home patient advocates who oppose the proposed tort limits amendment, also known as Issue 4. In addition to monetary donations, the committee reported $1,657 in donated work from several law firms across the state.
Issue 4, a proposed amendment to the Arkansas Constitution, would limit the amount attorneys earn in cases they win against health care providers to one-third of the total damages. It would also require the Legislature set a maximum cap for noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering, that is at least $250,000.
The amendment is largely supported by nursing home owners, doctors and pharmacists who donated money to a separate committee that paid for the soliciting of signatures for petitions to get the proposed amendment on the Nov. 8 general election ballot. Issue 4 is one of six proposed constitutional amendments and one initiated act currently on the ballot; it and some of the other proposals face a court challenge.
Attorneys were the primary supporters of the Committee to Protect AR Families during its first month of fundraising in July, helping the group raise $420,430.
The July report included a $100,000 donation from the McDaniel Law Firm in Little Rock, but that check was returned due to "an accounting error" after consulting with the Ethics Commission, a committee spokesman said. The donation was included again in the August report from Bobby McDaniel, a partner at the personal injury firm and father of former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. Excluding the donation from Bobby McDaniel that was returned, the committee has raised a total of $730,262.
The top contributor to the committee was Little Rock attorney Brad Hendricks, who gave two donations totaling $55,000 in August, in addition to another $50,000 he gave in July.
Joey McCutchen, of the McCutchen & Sexton Law Firm in Fort Smith, contributed $100,000 to the committee through a donation made in July. He did not give any money in August.
All but two donations in August were made by individuals or firms in Arkansas. The law firm Morgan & Morgan in Memphis, which bills itself as a "nationwide personal injury practice," gave $10,000. Bruce Flint, a lawyer for a firm located in Texarkana, Texas, gave $2,500.
The committee reported $110,433 in expenses in August, the largest of which was the return of McDaniel's original donation. Other expenses went to consulting, Web and accounting services.
The $712,114 the committee reported it had in the bank still trails the more than $900,000 raised by supporters of Issue 4 since May. However, the costly petitioning process has left Health Care Access for Arkansans, which backs the proposal, with $27,033 in available cash.
Health Care Access for Arkansans reported a steep decline in contributions last month, after the state's largest nursing home association -- which had contributed more than half of all the committee's donations -- reported that did not give or receive any money from its supporters in August.
Both sides of the issue are now involved with separate lawsuits in the state Supreme Court challenging the collection of signatures and the short explanatory title of the law approved to be printed on the ballot. The lawsuits, filed separately by supporters of the Committee to Protect AR Families and the Arkansas Bar Association, seek an order to stop the counting of votes on the proposed amendment, or to have it removed from the ballot. A hearing in the case filed by the Committee to Protect AR Families is scheduled for next Thursday.
Metro on 09/17/2016