It took a decade of legislative proposals, intense lobbying and a change in political power at the state Capitol, but we finally adopted comprehensive civil justice reform at the General Assembly last year, and the results are starting to pay off.

Georgia now has the 10th best tort reform law in the nation, according to a first-of-its-kind survey released last week by The Pacific Research Institute. The survey ranked states based on the quality of their civil justice systems and changes made to their tort laws.

The study's authors say Georgia would have been almost last --- 45th in the nation --- if we had not adopted the new legislation, which capped noneconomic damages, encouraged out-of-court settlements, made it more difficult to "shop" lawsuits to more favorable jurisdictions and made expert witnesses prove their qualifications.

While some say rankings don't matter, in this case, having the 10th best tort reform law makes Georgia a favorable climate for both business and the medical community. We are a state where it is now less likely to get sued for frivolous reasons and plaintiff lawyers can bring only truly grievous cases to court.

The authors of the U.S. Tort Liability Index: 2006 Report point out that Georgia can continue to move up in the rankings if it can protect its new law from (what else?) legal challenges. Already there are a host of suits throughout Georgia seeking to overturn portions of the new law, and we expect plaintiff lawyers to try to overturn all of it.

In the first days of the Republican takeover of the state Capitol last year, we were determined to adopt a comprehensive civil justice reform bill. The American Medical Association had just declared Georgia one of 12 states with a medical malpractice crisis as malpractice insurance rates skyrocketed and hospitals and nursing homes were hit with record premiums.

Corporations were also facing increasing litigation, from class- action suits to asbestos cases. With doctors dropping out of certain professions and corporations considering other states with more favorable legal climates, we had to pass reasonable limits on tort suits.

The legal climate was also costing consumers a "tort tax" of $845 per American annually because of the markup of the price of consumer items such as screwdrivers, Scotch tape and light bulbs. Businesses had to inflate costs to cover their escalating liability premiums.

Now that we're starting to remove some of the frivolous litigation, we are starting to see other savings. The state's largest underwriter of medical malpractice insurance, MAG Mutual, has frozen premiums the past two years. It has also pledged a 10 percent rollback once the Georgia Supreme Court upholds the $350,000 cap on non-economic damages such as pain and suffering.

Other insurance carriers are talking with the state insurance commissioner about writing policies here. With additional carriers in Georgia, that too should benefit consumers in the insurance marketplace.

The spotlight now turns to the judicial branch, which will interpret the law that we, the elected representatives of the people, have created. It will be important to see whether judges will attempt to supersede the wishes of the people's representatives in the General Assembly who brought about through a democratic process this needed temperance to our civil justice system.