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Time to welcome in state Representative Emily Shinever. She had
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a busy legislative session. How are you.
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I'm great, doing well.
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I'll be here, glad to have you on this morning. Okay,
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since last night was the home run derby, let's just
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start with that comparison. Comparative fault became the five hundred
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foot bomb of the legislative session. Let's before we get
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to the meat of it, let's walk through the feeling
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of it. Yeah, like you're being talked about a lot
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right now.
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Yeah, you know, it's one of those things I think
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for me, when you're in there and you're surrounded by
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your colleagues, there's so many conversations happening, and you know
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that we're realizing this is this really could shift how
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we do lawsuits in Louisiana, something that we all talk about.
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So you're, you know, in everyone's supporting because it takes
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more than one vote to get things accomplished. And that's
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why I say kudos to my colleagues that rally together
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to help me and help all of us get this
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across the finish line. So, but then pulling back now
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after you begin to see the fallout, the impact of
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people are talking about it, businesses, truckers everyday, individuals when
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I talk to them about it. So it is a lot,
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it's a lot to take in. But I'm just humbled
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by the support from all of my colleagues, the speaker, everybody,
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you know.
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It's just an incredible time there.
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It was certainly one of a handful of bills that
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could potentially make a pretty big difference in our insurance rates,
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for sure. So let's talk about the nuts and bolts.
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But what does comparative fault actually what does your bill
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actually do?
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Great question.
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So currently, prior to my bill being passed, we had
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a pure compared to fault system. And what that means
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is as far as just in a common cerch sense terms,
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is that someone could be ninety five percent at fault
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or ninety nine percent at fault and still be able
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to sue for that one percent or the five percent
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of damages, you know, and so in the process, and
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you know, backing up, I'm on civil law, and we
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had a lot of meetings prior to session where people
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were coming in doing testimonies, not just insurance companies, businesses, truckers,
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you know, talking about their rate shifting over a decade
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how much they're paying. A guy in my district was
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paying sixty five hundred a truck annually. Now he was up,
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he got a quote for sixty five thousand annually. So
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these are within a ten year span. So if we
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are listening to the people, we've got to do something
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about it.
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And athlete. That's what we did with this bill.
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And so now we shifted it to where if you're
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fifty one percent or more at fault, you cannot claim
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for damages. Now I'm not in I don't work in
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the insurance company in the insurance world, and I'm not
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an attorney, but I'm very common sense driven. And the
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more and more I talk to people, they're like, well,
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that makes sense. And I said, well, it does make
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sense because thirty four other states have a similar bar,
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whether it's fifty percent or fifty one. So this is
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not like a unicorn. This isn't something that hasn't been done.
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We just hadn't done it yet.
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So putting that number at fifty one percent right there
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makes it pretty cut and dry. It does what has
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been the reaction thus far.
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I mean, I think when you explain it, people Number
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one Mini didn't realize maybe that was that was maybe
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feeding the issue of a culture of lawsuits.
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And I'm not saying every lawsuit, but if.
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You know you're going to get a pay out even
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if you cause the accident, that does create this idea
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that well, I'll get something, right, I'll be able to
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sue for something. And so I think, now you know
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this goes into effect in January, we're going to see it.
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We'll see how this trickles down. But you know, there's
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there's some push back. People are like, well, you know,
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what is it fair? Is it this?
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I said, look, if you cause an accident, if you
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were the person that causes an accident, why would we
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not get in line with other states? And look, seventeen
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of the twenty five states that have some of the
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lowest insurance rates, they have this if they have a
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form of this fault system, right, whether it's fifty or
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fifty one percent, So that says a lot about you know,
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the legal climate impacts are this insurance problem.
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I'm not saying it's the only issue, but.
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More payouts, right, if we're constantly paying more money out,
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it's going to trickle down and impact the individual.
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This has been a problem thus far is what you
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said right there. I'm not saying this is the only issue.
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For far too we've been well, this isn't going to
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solve it all. And as long as it didn't solve
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it all, we didn't do ject. Didley like, it's time
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to start. I had a football coach in high school.
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You say, you can't eat an elephant one byte, right,
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it's time to start taking bites out of the elephant.
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And I think that's what y'all did this session, and
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yours was a pretty big bite.
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Absolutely, that is what look and I've been seeing some things,
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whether it's on social media. When I talk about it,
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people are like, well, am I still my rates are
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still high?
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My rates?
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And the truth is my rates I want my rates
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to go down. It takes time for this begin to
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go into effect. And like you said, we have to
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do the work. And I think in these committees it
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wasn't just civil law that met it was insurance.
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It was on both sides of the House.
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When people are coming to the table saying look here
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here's what other states are doing. These states have done this,
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these states have adjusted their laws. And when we hear that,
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people are commercial, especially our commercial companies when they're getting
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they're having to go to Mississippi park trucks there or
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go to Texas.
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It's a problem if we're if we're.
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Looking at the states, what are they doing and what
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is their legal climate? Like why how would we not
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make it better here? And let's just not just automobile,
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just the false system in general, Why would we not
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want to make a better climate for business? And it
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actually tells businesses out of state when they're looking at
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where they're coming, if we have it more fair and balanced,
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they're more likely to say, you know, let's go to Louisiana.
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We've got state Representative Emily Shinever in with us. And yeah,
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this has been one where it's been a very obvious Tennessee,
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Texas or Mississippi move before this. Now, this was one
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piece of the puzzle. There were other pieces of the puzzle.
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What do you put alongside your bill that will help
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move that needle down?
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Yeah, so we passed probably about sixteen bills. I believe
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it was out of the House, got to the Senate.
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You know, like any session, not just this one, in
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any topic, you may not all get everything that you've passed.
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It's fair I get it. For me, I want to
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see as much as we can and get everything done.
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I would love to see everything, but there's the debates,
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there's the inner turmoil figure out what to do, you know.
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I think another one that was impactful is medical transparency.
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When we're looking at billing and bills paid versus billed.
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We all know that whether even if you're not an accident,
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if something is being billed, there's a difference most likely
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than what was paid out. And so we've had it
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where you couldn't really even reveal in the court and
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the jury like what was actually paid.
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It was just what's built.
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So there's still some tweaking, I think down the road
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maybe with this bill, but it was incredible because it's
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again we're starting to say, no, we're gonna, we're gonna
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start fixing these things in a legal climate. We're gonna
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we're gonna start tweaking this because we can't do we
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can't just sit back and do it. We have to
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do something. We can't just say well, it's not gonna
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do anything. No, we're gonna do it. We're gonna keep working.
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Okay. So that brings me around to what is the
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next priority, because there were a handful of bills that
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didn't make it out this time around that I think
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need to come back to the forefront next time. Representative
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Egan's bill about nuclear verdicts was one of them. Where's
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your priority heading into the next session when it comes
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to taking an bite of the insurance elephant?
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Great question, and I for me, look, we're about four
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weeks out and so a little bit of like you're
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trying not to think about Yeah, no time here, But look,
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I think, like everything else, I am going to be
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constantly listening to my constituents, listening to businesses, listening to
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people that say we have to keep tweaking, or whether
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it's within this area of insurance, whether it's another area
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of our state that we're trying to make better for
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businesses and people to come here. At the end of
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the day, we want to keep our students here, we
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want to keep people in Louisiana. We want to build business,
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we want to stop people from leaving Louisiana.
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I mean, there's some.
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Great things done within workforce, there's some great things done
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with a LED. I think there is a there is
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an excitement and an idea of innovation of what we
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can do, and so I don't. I mean, look, I'm
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always looking at in the trenches eight what are some
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of the hard things to do. But going back to
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that bos you said about Egan, what's interesting is I
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want a pun point. When we start to tweak these things,
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it does make a difference. And like of those seventeen
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of those twenty five states, some of the states that
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aren't in that that are in that list, they have
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a cap a little bit right, And so that.
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Was a big discussion. It's like, oh, let's not talk.
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About that, but you know Mississippi does. And so those
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are the things that we're not done. I don't know
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where that goes. You have to have buy in from
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it's not just one vote. And I want to encourage
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people wh that are listening, is that let your legislators know,
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Let your senators know, Hey, this is what matters to me.
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If you can get three things done, right, are two
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things done? Because when you carry so many bills and
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do so many things, your time is spent debating, your
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time is spent gathering information. So for those listening, let
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us know this is what we care about. Let from
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from the top down, from governor down, this is what
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matters to me in the state and we can get
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it done.
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We get about three minutes left with State Representative Emily Sheneviere.
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Now let me ask you the hard question because things
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open up next session. This was a fiscal session where
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you were allowed five non fiscal bills, but there's somewhat
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of an ability to keep your eye on the ball
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regular session and that's just wide open. And don't know,
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we're only four weeks for the last that's right, but
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it's time to start to focus. Now, how do you
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keep your eye on the ball when you've got that
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big of a playing field next year?
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Look as going into my third year of my first term,
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you know, I jumped right in even year one, carrying
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some hard bills, did some third partly litigation. I've always
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kind of focused on some of these areas I think
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coming back in so it'll be my second you know,
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regular session. That's not just dealing with the fiscal matters,
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I think, and as an individual legislator you can carry
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as you know many it's the list, I think, though,
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You've got to really focus on the time and like
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what you can get across the finish line.
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As someone who is new coming in.
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I like to just say I'm going to tackle it all,
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you know, and then you get in You're like, okay,
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wait a minute, I mean, let me hone in, what
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are some areas that I really need to focus on?
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What are my strengths? Looking at your committees? Look, you
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carry bills a lot of times, you're on the committee.
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I'm in health and welfare, civil law judiciary, so a
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lot of the litigation so that I carry comes through
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my own committee, So that makes sense.
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I'm in that discussion a lot.
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So you're naturally gonna get you know, to some degree,
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unless it's your own area of influence.
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So I'm looking at that.
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I'm always looking at how do we make our legal
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climate better that that's not I've done that since day one,
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since I've gotten an office. I'm gonna look at what's
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gonna be good for business, lower taxes, I'm gonna look
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at how are we gonna make it where people can look.
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And I want to just kudos to my.
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Colleagues that help with a workforce piece of like trying
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to one door that's trying to get people that are
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dealing with social services into the workforce piece to kind
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of streamline in front of that. I think it's a
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huge generation, generational change, and I think that's when area
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Stephanie Barrault carried that bill, also representative of Carver. I
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think we're gonna see some of that. That's gonna be
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a huge thing. I think in the future too.
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Is Susie showing paying y'all to slip one door into
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every conversation.
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No, but it's I con well, and I think because
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you know, I tell people because we did the fiscal
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session and it was like an insurance session the first
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few weeks that bill. I feel like we talked a
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lot about it, but not as much as what I
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didn't carry it, But I just I just wanted to
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shout out because I think generationally we've got to get
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people to work and independent and feel like they have
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purpose and they're driven, and I think it's a huge
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win for the state.
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So that's what I like to talk about it.
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And it's getting it's sneaking into every conversation, and I
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love it because it's a good thing that a little
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bit under the radar but got done. Well, not really
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under the radar because everybody mentions it, but it got
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done and it will show net results for us in
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the Meanwhile, she has a state representative, Emily S. Sheinevera
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thank you so much for a couple of minutes.
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Thank you
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Time to welcome in state Representative Emily Shinever. She had
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a busy legislative session. How are you.
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I'm great, doing well.
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I'll be here, glad to have you on this morning. Okay,
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since last night was the home run derby, let's just
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start with that comparison. Comparative fault became the five hundred
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foot bomb of the legislative session. Let's before we get
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to the meat of it, let's walk through the feeling
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of it. Yeah, like you're being talked about a lot
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right now.
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Yeah, you know, it's one of those things I think
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for me, when you're in there and you're surrounded by
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your colleagues, there's so many conversations happening, and you know
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that we're realizing this is this really could shift how
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we do lawsuits in Louisiana, something that we all talk about.
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So you're, you know, in everyone's supporting because it takes
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more than one vote to get things accomplished. And that's
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why I say kudos to my colleagues that rally together
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to help me and help all of us get this
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across the finish line. So, but then pulling back now
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after you begin to see the fallout, the impact of
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people are talking about it, businesses, truckers everyday, individuals when
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I talk to them about it. So it is a lot,
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it's a lot to take in. But I'm just humbled
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by the support from all of my colleagues, the speaker, everybody,
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you know.
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It's just an incredible time there.
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It was certainly one of a handful of bills that
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could potentially make a pretty big difference in our insurance rates,
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for sure. So let's talk about the nuts and bolts.
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But what does comparative fault actually what does your bill
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actually do?
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Great question.
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So currently, prior to my bill being passed, we had
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a pure compared to fault system. And what that means
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is as far as just in a common cerch sense terms,
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is that someone could be ninety five percent at fault
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or ninety nine percent at fault and still be able
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to sue for that one percent or the five percent
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of damages, you know, and so in the process, and
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you know, backing up, I'm on civil law, and we
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had a lot of meetings prior to session where people
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were coming in doing testimonies, not just insurance companies, businesses, truckers,
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you know, talking about their rate shifting over a decade
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how much they're paying. A guy in my district was
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paying sixty five hundred a truck annually. Now he was up,
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he got a quote for sixty five thousand annually. So
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these are within a ten year span. So if we
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are listening to the people, we've got to do something
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about it.
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And athlete. That's what we did with this bill.
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And so now we shifted it to where if you're
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fifty one percent or more at fault, you cannot claim
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for damages. Now I'm not in I don't work in
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the insurance company in the insurance world, and I'm not
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an attorney, but I'm very common sense driven. And the
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more and more I talk to people, they're like, well,
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that makes sense. And I said, well, it does make
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sense because thirty four other states have a similar bar,
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whether it's fifty percent or fifty one. So this is
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not like a unicorn. This isn't something that hasn't been done.
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We just hadn't done it yet.
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So putting that number at fifty one percent right there
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makes it pretty cut and dry. It does what has
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been the reaction thus far.
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I mean, I think when you explain it, people Number
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one Mini didn't realize maybe that was that was maybe
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feeding the issue of a culture of lawsuits.
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And I'm not saying every lawsuit, but if.
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You know you're going to get a pay out even
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if you cause the accident, that does create this idea
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that well, I'll get something, right, I'll be able to
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sue for something. And so I think, now you know
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this goes into effect in January, we're going to see it.
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We'll see how this trickles down. But you know, there's
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there's some push back. People are like, well, you know,
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what is it fair? Is it this?
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I said, look, if you cause an accident, if you
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were the person that causes an accident, why would we
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not get in line with other states? And look, seventeen
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of the twenty five states that have some of the
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lowest insurance rates, they have this if they have a
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form of this fault system, right, whether it's fifty or
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fifty one percent, So that says a lot about you know,
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the legal climate impacts are this insurance problem.
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I'm not saying it's the only issue, but.
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More payouts, right, if we're constantly paying more money out,
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it's going to trickle down and impact the individual.
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This has been a problem thus far is what you
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said right there. I'm not saying this is the only issue.
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For far too we've been well, this isn't going to
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solve it all. And as long as it didn't solve
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it all, we didn't do ject. Didley like, it's time
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to start. I had a football coach in high school.
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You say, you can't eat an elephant one byte, right,
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it's time to start taking bites out of the elephant.
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And I think that's what y'all did this session, and
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yours was a pretty big bite.
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Absolutely, that is what look and I've been seeing some things,
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whether it's on social media. When I talk about it,
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people are like, well, am I still my rates are
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still high?
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My rates?
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And the truth is my rates I want my rates
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to go down. It takes time for this begin to
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go into effect. And like you said, we have to
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do the work. And I think in these committees it
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wasn't just civil law that met it was insurance.
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It was on both sides of the House.
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When people are coming to the table saying look here
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here's what other states are doing. These states have done this,
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these states have adjusted their laws. And when we hear that,
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people are commercial, especially our commercial companies when they're getting
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they're having to go to Mississippi park trucks there or
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go to Texas.
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It's a problem if we're if we're.
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Looking at the states, what are they doing and what
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is their legal climate? Like why how would we not
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make it better here? And let's just not just automobile,
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just the false system in general, Why would we not
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want to make a better climate for business? And it
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actually tells businesses out of state when they're looking at
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where they're coming, if we have it more fair and balanced,
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they're more likely to say, you know, let's go to Louisiana.
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We've got state Representative Emily Shinever in with us. And yeah,
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this has been one where it's been a very obvious Tennessee,
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Texas or Mississippi move before this. Now, this was one
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piece of the puzzle. There were other pieces of the puzzle.
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What do you put alongside your bill that will help
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move that needle down?
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Yeah, so we passed probably about sixteen bills. I believe
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it was out of the House, got to the Senate.
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You know, like any session, not just this one, in
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any topic, you may not all get everything that you've passed.
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It's fair I get it. For me, I want to
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see as much as we can and get everything done.
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I would love to see everything, but there's the debates,
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there's the inner turmoil figure out what to do, you know.
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I think another one that was impactful is medical transparency.
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When we're looking at billing and bills paid versus billed.
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We all know that whether even if you're not an accident,
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if something is being billed, there's a difference most likely
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than what was paid out. And so we've had it
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where you couldn't really even reveal in the court and
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the jury like what was actually paid.
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It was just what's built.
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So there's still some tweaking, I think down the road
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maybe with this bill, but it was incredible because it's
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again we're starting to say, no, we're gonna, we're gonna
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start fixing these things in a legal climate. We're gonna
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we're gonna start tweaking this because we can't do we
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can't just sit back and do it. We have to
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do something. We can't just say well, it's not gonna
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do anything. No, we're gonna do it. We're gonna keep working.
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Okay. So that brings me around to what is the
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next priority, because there were a handful of bills that
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didn't make it out this time around that I think
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need to come back to the forefront next time. Representative
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Egan's bill about nuclear verdicts was one of them. Where's
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your priority heading into the next session when it comes
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to taking an bite of the insurance elephant?
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Great question, and I for me, look, we're about four
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weeks out and so a little bit of like you're
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trying not to think about Yeah, no time here, But look,
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I think, like everything else, I am going to be
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constantly listening to my constituents, listening to businesses, listening to
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people that say we have to keep tweaking, or whether
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it's within this area of insurance, whether it's another area
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of our state that we're trying to make better for
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businesses and people to come here. At the end of
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the day, we want to keep our students here, we
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want to keep people in Louisiana. We want to build business,
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we want to stop people from leaving Louisiana.
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I mean, there's some.
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Great things done within workforce, there's some great things done
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with a LED. I think there is a there is
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an excitement and an idea of innovation of what we
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can do, and so I don't. I mean, look, I'm
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always looking at in the trenches eight what are some
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of the hard things to do. But going back to
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that bos you said about Egan, what's interesting is I
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want a pun point. When we start to tweak these things,
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it does make a difference. And like of those seventeen
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of those twenty five states, some of the states that
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aren't in that that are in that list, they have
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a cap a little bit right, And so that.
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Was a big discussion. It's like, oh, let's not talk.
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About that, but you know Mississippi does. And so those
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are the things that we're not done. I don't know
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where that goes. You have to have buy in from
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it's not just one vote. And I want to encourage
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people wh that are listening, is that let your legislators know,
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Let your senators know, Hey, this is what matters to me.
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If you can get three things done, right, are two
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things done? Because when you carry so many bills and
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do so many things, your time is spent debating, your
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time is spent gathering information. So for those listening, let
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us know this is what we care about. Let from
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from the top down, from governor down, this is what
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matters to me in the state and we can get
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it done.
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We get about three minutes left with State Representative Emily Sheneviere.
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Now let me ask you the hard question because things
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open up next session. This was a fiscal session where
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you were allowed five non fiscal bills, but there's somewhat
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of an ability to keep your eye on the ball
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regular session and that's just wide open. And don't know,
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we're only four weeks for the last that's right, but
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it's time to start to focus. Now, how do you
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keep your eye on the ball when you've got that
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big of a playing field next year?
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Look as going into my third year of my first term,
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you know, I jumped right in even year one, carrying
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some hard bills, did some third partly litigation. I've always
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kind of focused on some of these areas I think
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coming back in so it'll be my second you know,
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regular session. That's not just dealing with the fiscal matters,
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I think, and as an individual legislator you can carry
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as you know many it's the list, I think, though,
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You've got to really focus on the time and like
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what you can get across the finish line.
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As someone who is new coming in.
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I like to just say I'm going to tackle it all,
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you know, and then you get in You're like, okay,
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wait a minute, I mean, let me hone in, what
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are some areas that I really need to focus on?
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What are my strengths? Looking at your committees? Look, you
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carry bills a lot of times, you're on the committee.
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I'm in health and welfare, civil law judiciary, so a
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lot of the litigation so that I carry comes through
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my own committee, So that makes sense.
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I'm in that discussion a lot.
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So you're naturally gonna get you know, to some degree,
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unless it's your own area of influence.
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So I'm looking at that.
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I'm always looking at how do we make our legal
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climate better that that's not I've done that since day one,
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since I've gotten an office. I'm gonna look at what's
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gonna be good for business, lower taxes, I'm gonna look
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at how are we gonna make it where people can look.
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And I want to just kudos to my.
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Colleagues that help with a workforce piece of like trying
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to one door that's trying to get people that are
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dealing with social services into the workforce piece to kind
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of streamline in front of that. I think it's a
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huge generation, generational change, and I think that's when area
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Stephanie Barrault carried that bill, also representative of Carver. I
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think we're gonna see some of that. That's gonna be
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a huge thing. I think in the future too.
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Is Susie showing paying y'all to slip one door into
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every conversation.
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No, but it's I con well, and I think because
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you know, I tell people because we did the fiscal
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session and it was like an insurance session the first
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few weeks that bill. I feel like we talked a
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lot about it, but not as much as what I
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didn't carry it, But I just I just wanted to
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shout out because I think generationally we've got to get
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people to work and independent and feel like they have
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purpose and they're driven, and I think it's a huge
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win for the state.
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So that's what I like to talk about it.
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And it's getting it's sneaking into every conversation, and I
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love it because it's a good thing that a little
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bit under the radar but got done. Well, not really
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under the radar because everybody mentions it, but it got
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done and it will show net results for us in
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the Meanwhile, she has a state representative, Emily S. Sheinevera
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thank you so much for a couple of minutes.
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Thank you
