WEATHER
To some, Joyce Taylor could pass for a politician or lobbyist. She has testified before the House Judiciary Committee at the state capitol.
During this year’s legislative session, she made the trip to Olympia at least 10 times in three months.
And when House Bill 1873 was voted down in the Senate last week — a bill that would have changed the requirements for and recoveries under a wrongful injury or death cause of action — Taylor was personally affected.
But Taylor, a Gig Harbor resident, doesn’t work in government: She’s a concerned parent who has spent the past two years hoping to reform Washington state’s wrongful death laws.
“It’s not about me,” she said. “It’s about finding out why these elements stayed in there. For some reason, this has never been updated.”
Taylor’s story
Almost two years ago, Taylor learned about the state’s law firsthand. Her 27-year-old daughter, Georgia, died on Mother’s Day weekend in 2006 after undergoing voluntary jaw-realignment surgery in a Seattle hospital.
During post-surgery care, Georgia choked on liquid that was given to her to drink unassisted. Her heart stopped, and hospital staff did not revive her in time to prevent brain death.
“It’s like something out of a novel or something,” Taylor said.
It was after Georgia’s death that Taylor and her family discovered that they were unable to sue the hospital. Under current state law, if someone 18 or older, unmarried with no children, dies due to negligence, no family members can sue to collect damages.
Georgia’s estate, for example, could sue on Georgia’s behalf for funeral costs, burial costs and net accumulations, which is the total amount Georgia would earn over her lifetime, minus the total amount of money Georgia would have spent over her lifetime.
But Taylor and her son, Alec Douglas — Georgia’s brother — are not permitted to sue the hospital that allegedly caused Georgia’s death for their own pain and suffering, because they are not considered direct beneficiaries of her estate.
Taylor and Douglas feel the current law places an age restriction on when the parent-child relationship ends.
“I believe no age limit is fair,” Douglas said about why he hopes to change the law. “This is about accountability. The point of (HB 1873) was justice and fairness for a small segment of the population that cannot be represented or advocated on behalf of if their parents cannot.”
The bill’s history
Taylor made the transition from grieving mother to bill advocate only because of coincidence.
After Georgia died, Taylor began looking for lawyers who might take on the case. She was referred to Pat Greenstreet, a Seattle attorney, who decided to take on the case, despite the high possibility that Taylor and Douglas — both of whom work at Frontier Bank in Gig Harbor — would never recoup financial damages for Georgia’s death.
Greenstreet said that most lawyers would not take on a case like Taylor’s, due to the small amount of damages that could be sued for.
Since Georgia was working as a KinderCare employee at the time of her death, her wages were minimal and would not add up to much financial loss for her estate.
“She was not a high wage-earner. In her life time, her earnings were not going to be substantial,” Taylor said, adding that the current law does not take into account that Georgia planned to open her own daycare center and would make a higher income.
Greenstreet said she was interested in the case because she believed an injustice had occurred. While doing research, she met with health care providers who witnessed the negligent care that Georgia was provided.
“I became interested in pursuing full accountability for wrongs that were committed,” Greenstreet said. “I’ve been doing this kind of law for 24 years, and that’s one of the saddest kind of cases.”
During the 2006 legislative session, Greenstreet, who sits on the board of the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, became aware of a bill that could change wrongful death laws in the state.
Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, had recently introduced a House bill that would erase the age limitations on wrongful death suits, based on the arguments that an age cap for lawsuits is arbitrary, and that the parent-child relationship does not end when the child turns 18.
Greenstreet suggested that Taylor testify before the Legislature.
“Joyce was among the most articulate and impassioned spokesperson that I encountered in the course of my work with this group,” Greenstreet said. “And I have the good fortune to be representing her.”
Although that bill failed in 2006, it was reintroduced in 2007 and found support from 26th District Rep. Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor.
“I wanted to make age irrelevant,” said Lantz, who has three adult children older than 30. “My relationship to them is every bit as tight as it was at 4, 5 or 8 (years old).”
Another supporter of HB 1873 was Adrianne Williams of the state Trial Lawyers Association — the association’s communications director — who worked closely with both Taylor and Douglas to prepare their testimony for the house.
“There have been numerous families where our members have had to say, ‘There’s no way we can help you,’ ” Williams said about how frequently lawyers turn down wrongful death lawsuits. “It’s an unfair and unjust loophole to have in our laws.”
Taylor returned again this session to testify before the House and Senate. She said telling her story was one of the most difficult parts in the advocacy process.
“It’s been a real learning experience,” she said. “I tell you, you go up and down on an emotional roller coaster every time.”
Douglas feels the same, likening the repeated testimony to reliving the experience of his sister’s death.
“It’s having the most painful thing in my life happen again, pretty much once a week this year,” he said.
The opposition
While HB 1873 passed the House successfully this session, it encountered problems when it entered the Senate.
The bill found opposition from state and county governments who believe opening up wrongful death suits to a larger portion of the population would lead to more lawsuits that could bankrupt local government.
The state Attorney General’s office and the Washington Liability Reform Coalition, a lobbying group that works to reduce liability exposure to their members, also opposed the bill.
“There is reluctance on the part of policymakers to set it up that government becomes the deep pockets for these kind of lawsuits,” Lantz said.
Another amendment was added to the bill that would move the age cap from 18 to 26, an action that Taylor, Douglas and Williams felt was arbitrary.
“Joyce and Alec are the perfect examples why that amendment (was) unfair,” Lantz said. “It prevents somebody from getting justice for what happened to their family. How are you going to tell one family that they can sue for their child, but the next family whose child was 27...
“How do you distinguish the loss between those two families?”
The debate continued, with additional amendments added to limit government liability and change the age cap, but the discussion could not be resolved by the time the session ended last Thursday.
“This discussion was enough to end up killing the bill,” Lantz said.
Next steps
Now that the session has ended and the bill did not pass, Taylor and Douglas are unsure what their next steps will be.
Greenstreet will continue to represent them, and a lawsuit may be filed down the line.
“I’m committed to this family,” Greenstreet said. “I agreed to represent them under the law as it presently exists.”
Both Taylor and Douglas agree that the motivation behind changing the law is not for their financial benefit. They hope to change the law for other families who may face a similar situation.
“We will continue to fight this bill, long after it affects our family,” Douglas said. “It affects my kids, your kids, the kids I coach in Little League.”
Williams expressed disappointment that the bill did not pass.
“It breaks my heart that this didn’t pass, not only because I’ve worked with so many families, but because of someone like Joyce, who has worked so hard and spent so much time on this,” she said, adding that WSTLA would support the bill if it came forward again.
Seeing the bill fail twice has been painful for Taylor: After testifying before the House one day in February, she stayed on the House floor to watch state representatives debate the bill.
Although she felt that local lawmakers like Lantz were supportive of the bill, she remembered feeling like the opposition’s lobbyists did not understand the gravity of her own situation.
“If they lost this bill, they will come back and work on something else,” she said. “They can go home; they can go back to their family. I can’t. That’s the difference.”
Print
E-Mail