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