Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday officially vetoed a bill that would have overturned what has been called Florida’s “free kill” law.

The 35-year-old law prohibits family members from suing for big payouts for pain and suffering if an unmarried loved one who was 25 years old or older unexpectedly dies from medical negligence. The family members can sue only for economic damages such as funeral costs or medical bills. Florida is the only state with this type of legal restriction in place.

This session, lawmakers in both the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill for a full repeal after hearing testimony from dozens of grief-stricken families.

On Thursday, at a news conference at a hospital in Fort Myers, DeSantis re-stated that he opposes the proposed bill that the state’s lawmakers sent to him for his signature.

“When you have the floodgates open there’s an incentive for lawyers to bring cases knowing that if someone sues you, even if you are 100% in the right, just the cost of having to defend that can be prohibitive,” DeSantis said. “Sometimes it’s cheaper to do a settlement even if you haven’t done anything wrong. That imposes costs on our economy, our society.”

DeSantis also claimed that repealing the law would lead to higher malpractice premiums and make it more difficult to recruit physicians to Florida, a state struggling with a physician shortage. Florida already has among the highest premiums for medical malpractice insurance, he said.

The governor reminded Floridians that state law still allows anyone to sue for economic damages, and cited a lack of caps on such noneconomic damages as pain and suffering as a major flaw in the bill sent to him to sign.

Family members of victims of malpractice have been fighting for eight years to overturn the law called the Wrongful Death Act.

“We have a right to expect that physicians are going to meet appropriate standards,” DeSantis said. “There’s a lot that goes into it. The state of Florida provides a lot of support for training physicians. If someone is careless, there needs to be accountability, but what is the best way to do that? Is it to open the floodgates and open it up to lawsuits against physicians who weren’t necessarily negligent?”

With the session still underway, lawmakers could override the governor’s veto.

Melody Page, co-founder of the Florida Medical Rights Association, said advocates will continue to hold news conferences and lobby in Tallahassee to repeal the “free kill” law.

“We have lots of support,” she said, adding that if even if lawmakers don’t override the governor’s veto, her group will push to have a repeal of the law considered next session. “Every year, more people find the movement when they can’t get accountability and their loved one is killed. Advocacy fills that void.”

Page said that rather than fighting to repeal the law or worrying about higher medical malpractice premiums, healthcare providers should focus on improving the quality of care.

“Corporations own most hospitals now,” Page said. “If they were to put dollars into improving the staffing ratio, patient safety, and professional development, then maybe they wouldn’t have high medical malpractice rates.”

At DeSantis’ Thursday news conference, Dr. Larry Antonucci, president and CEO of Lee Health, said he supports the governor’s stance on the bill “on many fronts.”

The biggest reason, he said, is that the bill would exacerbate the physician shortage, increase costs, and impact emergency services.

“It will be a deterrent to the one thing that is critical for all of us and that is the recruitment of physicians to this state,” he said. “We are recruiting hundreds of physicians every year and there are other places people are going to want to go because of the risk of malpractice.”

Medical malpractice attorney Jordan Dulcie of Searcy Law in West Palm Beach said Floridians would benefit by a repeal of the law because the state disciplinary process for doctors is not effective in discouraging bad behavior.

“Attorneys are the only ones who hold doctors accountable,” Dulcie said. “The victims of this law are going to continue to fight, and I will be there to support them.”

The bill’s sponsors were aware they would have an uphill battle in getting DeSantis to sign off.

Mary Jo Cain Reis, who says her father, who lived in Cocoa Beach, was a victim of medical negligence, is already talking to the lawmakers to garner support for an override of the veto.

“It passed 93% in both chambers, so we need to keep fighting for it,” she said. “We’re not going away.”

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