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House leaders plan to pay off a dozen judgments against the state this year.
“If a bill was filed with a judgment, it is my goal to pay those judgments,” Appropriations Chair Jack McFarland says. “Some of these [judgments] have been on the books for years.”
The Legislature doesn’t pay for judgments every year, but this year, the price tag appears to be well within its means. The total cost of the 12 bills filed is less than $1.6 million, with the size of the judgments ranging from $450,000 to just $3,639.68.
While money for judgments is not included in Gov. Jeff Landry’s executive budget, McFarland plans to pay for them out of the estimated $29 million that the state expects to collect this fiscal year above what was projected.
This year’s total is a far cry from the $101 million the state agreed to pay in 2022 to compensate victims of a 1983 flood in Tangipahoa Parish, which was found to have been caused by shoddy engineering during the building of Interstate 12. About one-third of the 1,200 plaintiffs in the class action died while waiting for the state to pay up.
There isn’t really a formal process to determine if and when a judgment gets paid. Lawmakers typically agree to carry the bills on behalf of their constituents, although in at least one case this year, a different legislator filed the bill because the plaintiff’s representative was unresponsive.
“These can take years to get funded but require a legislator to put it into the process,” says Speaker Pro Tem Mike Johnson, who is carrying two such bills this session. “We come in after the case is tried in court or after the state has reached an agreement of settlement.”
Judgments can accrue interest over time, so getting them off the books when possible generally makes fiscal sense, legislators say.
House Commerce Chair Daryl Deshotel, like some other lawmakers, has not looked into the details about the case that led to the judgment the bill he filed will address. After all, once it gets to that point, the state is on the hook regardless, so it’s basically a moot point from a legislator’s perspective.
He just knows that one of his constituents, or possibly their lawyer, contacted his legislative office. And he feels there has got to be a better system.
For example, what if the plaintiff is a political enemy of their representative? What if an unscrupulous lawmaker wanted a cut of the settlement?
“I just think there should be a bucket that it goes to, and the Appropriations Committee decides if they have the money to pay them or not,” Deshotel says.
—They said it: “I have no comment.” –Former Gov. John Bel Edwards, when asked if he plans to run for the U.S. Senate, in the Shreveport Times
