Tag: Damage Caps

Florida Caps on Noneconomic Damages Held Unconstitutional

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By Alex Stein

STEIN on Medical Malpractice has published a survey of noteworthy court decisions in the field for 2017. This survey includes an important decision, North Broward Hospital District v. Kalitan, 219 So.3d 49 (Fla. 2017), that voided Florida’s cap on medical malpractice victims’ noneconomic damages, Fla. Stat. Ann. §§ 766.118(2), 766.118(3).

Section 766.118(2) provides that in a cause of action for personal injury arising from the medical negligence of practitioners, the noneconomic damages award shall not exceed $500,000 per claimant; however, if the negligence resulted in a permanent vegetative state or death, or if the negligence caused a catastrophic injury and a manifest injustice would occur unless increased damages are awarded, then damages may be awarded in an amount up to $1 million. Section 766.118(3) similarly limits damages to $750,000 and $1.5 million, respectively, when the injury results from the negligence of non-practitioners.

Based on the precedent laid down in McCall v. United States, 134 So.3d 894 (Fla. 2014), and discussed here, (holding Florida’s cap on wrongful-death noneconomic damages unconstitutional), the Florida Supreme Court held that Section 766.118 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Florida Constitution. Art. I, § 2, Fla. Const. The Court reasoned that Section 766.118 arbitrarily reduces the damages that may be awarded to the most drastically injured victims and that this arbitrary reduction is “not rationally related to alleviating the purported medical malpractice crisis…”

House of Commons Report: Managing the Costs of Clinical Negligence in NHS Hospitals

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By John Tingle

The House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts (Committee of Public Accounts) has recently considered the issue of managing the increasing clinical negligence costs in NHS (National Health Service) hospitals in a report. They make a number of important recommendations as well as putting into the spotlight a number of developing trends and themes. The report is linked to a report recently published by the National Audit Office on managing clinical negligence costs.This report is closely examined by the Committee with witnesses giving oral and written evidence.

The high cost of clinical negligence litigation

The report begins with a statement on the high and increasing cost of clinical negligence which sets the scene and tone for the rest of the report The Committee has raised concerns about the rising costs of clinical negligence on a number of previous occasions going back as far as 2002. The questions and answers of witnesses called by the Committee do reveal some very interesting and telling insights into the issues and the problems faced. Read More

Current trends in clinical negligence litigation in the National Health Service (NHS)

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By John Tingle

NHS Resolution (the new operating name for the NHS LA, National Health Service Litigation Authority) occupies a central role in the NHS clinical negligence claims environment. They manage clinical negligence claims on behalf of NHS trusts (hospitals) and other bodies. They also provide indemnity cover and have an increasing role in assisting the NHS with risk management and patient safety.

NHS Resolution have recently published their Annual Report and Accounts which contains important data, trends, case studies and other information on clinical negligence and patient safety. This report also very clearly signals the new more inclusive, upstream, closer to the problem approach that NHS Resolution is now taking to its work.

Facts, figures and trends Read More

CAVEAT HOSPITIA: Suits Alleging Negligent Credentialing Against Hospitals Get Exemption from Tort Reform

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By Alex Stein

Policymakers and scholars interested in medical malpractice and torts generally should read Billeaudeau v. Opelousas General Hospital Authority, — So.3d —-, 2016 WL 6123862 (La. 2016). In this recent and important decision, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that suits alleging negligent credentialing against a hospital sound in regular negligence, rather than medical malpractice, and consequently fall outside the purview of the state’s Medical Malpractice Act (MMA) and its limitations on liability. The Court made this decision in connection with the state’s cap on damages recoverable in medical malpractice actions, La. Rev. Stat. § 40:1231.2(B)(1), which limits the total amount that courts can award the victim to $500,000, plus interest and cost, on top of the victim’s future expenditures on medical care and support. For many victims of medical malpractice and their families this cap amount is meager, but the Court nonetheless upheld its constitutionality back in 1992. See Butler v. Flint Goodrich Hosp., 607 So.2d 517 (La. 1992).

The Court has now decided that suits alleging negligent credentialing against hospitals are not subject to this cap and that successful plaintiffs consequently will recover full compensation for any proven damage. Read More

President Trump’s Tort Reform

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By Alex Stein

President Trump’s budget for Fiscal Year 2018 proposes a thoroughgoing reform of our medical malpractice system [Executive Office of the President of the United States, Major Savings and Reforms, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2018, at 114 (2017) (hereinafter, the “Budget”)]. The reform’s stated goals are “[to] reduce defensive medicine … limit liability, reduce provider burden, promote evidence-based practices, and strengthen the physician-patient relationship.”

To achieve these goals, the reform will introduce the following measures:

  • a cap on non-economic damage awards of $250,000 (adjustable to inflation);
  • a three-year statute of limitations;
  • allowing courts to modify attorney’s fee arrangements;
  • abolition of the “collateral source” rule (to allow judges and jurors to hear evidence of the plaintiff’s income from other sources such as workers’ compensation and insurance);
  • creating a safe harbor for clinicians who follow evidence-based clinical-practice guidelines.

Read More

The High Cost of Clinical Negligence Claims

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By John Tingle

In the UK, the Department of Health (DH) have just published a consultation paper on introducing fixed recoverable costs in lower value clinical negligence claims. The document contains some controversial proposals which many claimant, patient lawyers are very concerned about. They feel the proposals will make it much harder for patients with lower value claims to find a solicitor to fight their case .The publication of the consultation paper comes in the wake of criticism that some clinical negligence claimant lawyers, solicitor firms , make excessive and unreasonable costs demands. The NHS LA (The National Health Service Litigation Authority) which manages negligence and other claims against the NHS in England states:

“Claimant costs for lower value claims are disproportionate and excessive. For claims where compensation is less than £10,000, claimant lawyers recover almost three times more in costs on average.”(p.10)

The DH Consultation Paper begins by stating the annual cost of clinical negligence in the NHS. It has risen from £1.2bn in 2014/15 to £1.5bn in 2015/2016.Legal costs were 34% of the 2015/16 expenditure.The consultation paper states that the current system of claims resolution is often lengthy and adversarial. This creates what can be termed a dual problem. Delaying possible learning of lessons from incidents and also escalating the costs of litigation when claims are brought. Read More

Tort Reform in Oregon: Constitutional, After All?

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By Alex Stein

Three years ago, Oregon’s Supreme Court voided the state’s $500,000 cap on noneconomic damages for medical malpractice for violating the constitutional guarantee that “In all civil cases the right of Trial by Jury shall remain inviolate” (Or. Const., Art. I, § 17, as interpreted in Lakin v. Senco Products, Inc., 987 P.2d 463, modified, 987 P.2d 476 (Or. 1999)). Klutschkowski v. Oregon Medical Group, 311 P.3d 461 (Or. 2013). This cap also clashed with “every man’s” right to “remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, property, or reputation” (Or. Const., Art. I, § 10, as interpreted in Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 23 P.3d 333 (Or. 2001), and in Hughes v. PeaceHealth, 178 P.3d 225 (Or. 2008)). The Court reasoned that a person’s right to recover full jury-assessed compensation for injuries recognized as actionable in 1857, when Oregon adopted its constitution, cannot be abolished or abridged by statute or common law. For my discussion of the Klutschowski decision, see here. For my discussion of a similar entrenchment principle adopted by the Utah Supreme Court in Smith v. United States, 356 P.3d 1249 (Utah 2015), see here.

The Oregon Supreme Court has now changed this course in a long precedential decision, Horton v. Oregon Health and Science University, — P.3d —- 359 Or. 168 (Or. 2016). Read More

Medical Malpractice: The New Wave of Constitutional Attacks on Damage Caps

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By Alex Stein

About forty-five years ago, tort reforms took off and states have started capping compensation awards for victims of medical malpractice. The plaintiffs bar countered this initiative by raising different constitutional challenges against caps. Those challenges alluded to equal protection, due process, separation of powers, and the general right to a jury trial. Some state courts have rejected those challenges, while other courts have struck the caps down for being unconstitutional. For discussion and the list of representative cases, see Alex Stein, Toward a Theory of Medical Malpractice, 97 Iowa L. Rev. 1201, 1253-54 (2012).

Courts’ decisions in favor and against the caps juxtaposed the victim’s entitlement to remedy against society’s interest in reducing doctors’ compensation burden and cost of liability insurance. Courts that gave precedence to the latter interest did so in the hopes to contain the cost of medical care for patients. The “trickle down” theory underlying these hopes has been questioned on empirical and doctrinal grounds. See Tom Baker, The Medical Malpractice Myth 1-21 (2005) (demonstrating that claims linking the cost of medical care to medical-malpractice liability are empirically unfounded and calling them an “urban legend”) and Stein, id. at 1247-56 (showing that, as a doctrinal matter, doctors can be found responsible for patients’ injuries only in extreme cases and that a rational physician should care more about being identified and reported to the federal databank as a malpractitioner than about how much she will pay if found liable). The Florida Supreme Court has rejected that theory in a recent decision, McCall v. United States, 134 So.3d 894 (Fla. 2014), that relied (inter alia) on Tom Baker’s work. For my discussion of this landmark decision, see here.

For obvious reasons, plaintiffs’ attorneys are loath to depend on such tradeoffs and prefer to base their claims on constitutional rights that are not subject to balancing.  Read More

Nevada’s $350,000 Cap on Noneconomic Damages Held Constitutional and Applicable Per Incident

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By Alex Stein

Bad news for Nevada’s victims of medical malpractice. This state’s Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages as limiting recovery for all kinds of victims and injuries. Tam v. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., — P.3d —- , 2015 WL 5771245 (Nev. 2015).  Moreover, the Court held that the cap applies per incident, which encompasses all mistakes that the doctor may have made in delivering a single treatment to a patient and all the victims of those mistakes (such as twins born with birth defects as a result of negligent prenatal care or delivery). For my discussion of the “per incident” and alternative approaches to caps, see here. Read More

“Medical Malpractice” vs. General Negligence: The Case of Falling Accidents

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By Alex Stein

As I wrote previously – see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here – whether a tort action sounds in “medical malpractice” as opposed to general negligence, or vice versa, can be crucial. Suits sounding in “medical malpractice” must satisfy special requirements that include shortened limitations periods, statutes of repose, and expert affidavits (or certificates of merit) at filing. In many states, those suits are also subject to special damage caps. Suits sounding in general negligence are free from these constraints. Filing and prosecuting those suits is consequently not as onerous and expensive as filing and prosecuting medical malpractice actions. For that reason, we witness many disputes over this pivotal categorization issue. Read More