Dear Friends and Members,

In an unfinished legislative session already notorious for its inaction, NYSTLA has fared remarkably well, to the credit of its leadership, active members, lobbyists and staff.

By directly engaging elected officials, providing expert bill analysis and aggressively educating legislators and the public on our issues, NYSTLA's multi-pronged legislative strategy has so far been successful in beating back an unprecedented attack on consumer rights.

NYSTLA's legislative campaigns benefited from the high-profile expertise and experience of our Albany-based lobbyists, the efforts of NYSTLA's leadership and members to meet with legislators at district offices and in Albany and NYSTLA's significant presence at this year's Civil Justice Lobby Day. The substantive analysis provided by the hundreds of memos NYSTLA wrote on bills moving through the Legislature, NYSTLA's legislative communication strategy, including hard-hitting ads placed on the back page of Albany's must-read publication, the Legislative Gazette, and the hundreds of emails sent by members through NYSTLA's Legislative Action Center were integral to articulating NYSTLA's message and demonstrating our political strength. Congratulations to all our members, and special kudos to those who actively participated.

Holding the Line on Consumer Protection Measures: In the continued misguided clamor for tort "reform," two of New York's time-honored consumer protection statutes -- the scaffold law and the vicarious liability statute as applied to leased vehicles -- were again threatened by highly coordinated and well-funded industry campaigns. The industry push was not new, but the level of pressure was unprecedented and unrelenting. Like so many anti-consumer measures, both campaigns centered around high insurance costs, perversely threatening to cut off remedies for injured people to relieve pressure on industry at a time when the insurance carriers are actually faring quite well.

But we have successfully fought back. As we wait for the Legislature to return in a few weeks to finish the session, we are holding the line against threatened statutory changes. In large part, our success is due to an innovative approach to the problem. For the first time in the long history of the stand-off on these issues, a party to the debate -- NYSTLA -- has offered thoughtful solutions that would relieve the cost burden on businesses while maintaining statutory protections.

The Scaffold Law: A.7213 (Morelle)/S.1710 (Volker) would undermine the protections offered in Labor Law Sections 240 and 241 by replacing the site owner and contractor's responsibility for maintaining safe working conditions with a comparative negligence standard. We responded with original research showing the superior safety record that New York enjoys because of the scaffold law; the strikingly inferior bargaining positions of construction workers, many of whom are illegal aliens; and the relatively minor impact of the statute on the already high cost of insurance. Many unions joined our campaign, along with injured workers who would have been left without hope in the absence of the scaffold law. But most importantly, we engaged our opponents in a discussion -- which is ongoing -- of an alternative solution.

The proposal, which calls for the statutory creation of a hybrid reciprocal insurance company that would write a single "wrap-around" policy for each job site, would greatly reduce costs and make insurance coverage much more affordable. Many legislators view the proposal as a way to address concerns of contractors while protecting the interests of workers and have expressed an interest in sponsoring implementing legislation. In the meantime, the pressure to eviscerate the labor law has been relieved as negotiations proceed around the new proposal.

Vicarious Liability: A powerful coalition of auto manufacturers and dealers, banks, and insurance companies staged a relentless campaign for the repeal of New York's vicarious liability law as it applies to leased vehicles. As in the case of the scaffold law, our opponents made much of the fact that we are the last state to attribute liability to a lessor of a vehicle as its owner - this despite the fact that ownership of leased vehicles saves leasing companies $1.1 billion dollars annually in tax write-offs for depreciation. Here again we fought back, contrasting the stories of victims against the greed of the insurance industry, which continues to reduce its own vulnerability across the country without reducing rates. And, again, we offered an insurance solution -- a statutory fund modeled on the successful New York Black Car Injury Compensation Fund and the Jockey Injury Compensation Fund -- that has sparked the interest of legislators and some industry members, forestalling a blow to consumer interests that some predicted was inevitable.

The proposal calls for a one-time per lease fee to finance the fund, which would be used for the purchase of a master aggregate insurance policy to cover vicarious liability claims. The very existence of this proposal has changed the politics surrounding the issue. Although the Senate passed a bill in the face of industry pressure, it is not the same repeal of lessor vicarious liability that it passed last year, but an obviously unworkable one-house "place-holder" that suggests an insurance solution to the problem. Another proposal has been offered by the car dealer lobby which, although imperfect, is an improvement over the Senate bill and, by all appearances, represents a good faith effort to adapt the NYSTLA proposal.

When the session resumes at the end of July, we can expect that discussions will continue on both these issues, and in the meantime we know that the industry drumbeat for repeal will continue unabated. But NYSTLA has created its own drumbeat that has proven more engaging, offering thoughtful solutions at a time when most policy-makers are feeling otherwise hopelessly gridlocked.

Medical Malpractice Legislation: NYSTLA's efforts were also successful in defeating a bill that would have granted attending physicians, mid-wives and their medical groups unprecedented immunity when their negligence causes injury or death before, during or immediately after a birth. The bill would have capped liability at $250,000, forcing injured victims to rely on Medicaid for all of their future care. NYSTLA's capable Medical Malpractice Committee, chaired by Joe Awad and Matt Gaier, with the aid of our Albany lobbyists, organized quickly and effectively to eliminate support for this anti-patient bill, with NYSTLA members reaching out to legislators at district office visits and in Albany.

Weighing in on the Rights of New York Citizens and in Defense of Our Civil Justice System: Over the course of the 2004 session, NYSTLA's staff and lobbyists reviewed over 800 bills that had the potential to affect consumer, worker, patient, or victim rights; reduce accountability by offering various types of immunity; alter the common law or the civil justice system; or impact the practice of law in New York State. Of the bills considered, we wrote and distributed memoranda on 200 bills in advance of votes in committee or on the floor of the Assembly or Senate. There can be no question of the impact of these memos on the decisions made by lawmakers. They serve an important educational function for legislators who do not have the time or staff to fully analyze and assess the impact of the thousands of bills introduced each year. Legislators rely on our expertise and input; in fact, NYSTLA staff receives dozens of calls asking our positions on bills for which we have not issued a memo.

2004 Victories: Not a single bill that NYSTLA opposed has passed both houses of the Legislature. Seven bills that NYSTLA supported have. So far one NYSTLA-supported bill that passed both houses has been signed into law by the Governor as chapter 68 of the Laws of 2004. It amends the CPLR to extend from June 16, 2004 to June 16, 2006 the date by which a personal injury or wrongful death action may be brought for exposure to phenoxy herbicides, known as Agent Orange. The six other bills have yet to be forwarded to the Governor:

• A bill that clarifies rules for the filing of civil papers, in response to the Court of Appeals decision in Mendon Ponds Neighborhood Association v. Dehm.
• A bill that makes it possible to commence tort actions electronically in Albany, Monroe, Westchester, New York, Nassau, Suffolk, Bronx, Kings, Queens and Richmond counties.
• A bill that will prohibit insurers from determining premiums or rates for insurance policies, or other policy determinations (cancellations, denial or non-renewals of policies), based upon the credit history of a consumer, a practice considered discriminatory by consumer advocates.
• A bill that will clarify the type of identifying information required for admission of medical testing into evidence to conform to standard procedures within the medical profession, avoiding the significant time and expense of calling expert witnesses for the limited and largely ministerial purpose of introducing medical test results.
• A bill that will help assure workers' compensation benefits to farm workers by requiring an owner or operator of a farm or a farm labor contractor to provide an injured employee with a claim form no later than three days after the employer received notice of the injury, or face a penalty. The proposal would also require every contractor, foreman or supervisor who has notice of an employee's injury to inform the employer.
• A bill that sets new requirements for emergency rulemaking to help assure that the public has an opportunity to get full notice of the proposed rule and to participate in the rulemaking.

All told, this is a record to be proud of.

-- Martin W. Edelman, President