In our June post Oklahoma High Court Nullifies State Tort Reform Law, we criticized the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision in Douglas v. Cox Retirement, which struck down the state’s tort reform law for failing to follow its constitution’s “single subject” rule. In the post, we asked:
So what’s a state legislature to do under the non-guidance offered by the majority opinion in Douglas? Should it spend its limited time in session trying to pass 90 separate bills or smaller groups of bills, with, as the dissent wrote, “no greater assurance the legislation will pass the single-subject test”?
As of today, it’s likely that we will find out what the legislature will do sooner than its next formal legislative session in 2014. Governor Mary Fallin issued an executive order calling the legislature into a special session commencing Tuesday, September 3.
For more on the Douglas decision and its impact, see this Federalist Society State Court Docket Watch article authored by the Chief Counsel of WLF’s Legal Studies Division.