Access To Justice

I’ve written before about medical malpractice caps, and why they don’t make much sense, so I thought I would offer a bit of an update on the current happenings around the country.

Illinois was in the news recently as a key battleground, when the state’s Supreme Court on December 18 delayed issuing a ruling on whether a law capping medical practice damages would survive.

The law, passed in 2005, established caps on non-economic damages of $500,000 in cases against doctors and $1 million against hospitals. The case, Lebron vs. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, was argued last year and deals with the tragic case of Abigaile LeBron, a 13-month-old girl who suffered a severe brain injury during birth at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park.

The Illinois Supreme Court has twice previously thrown out damage caps as a violation of the separation of powers between the legislature and the courts. But the current state Supreme Court might be more amenable to damage caps since the 2004 election of Justice Lloyd A. Karmeier. Karmeier’s election was widely interpreted as a rejection of big damage awards, including those in medical malpractice cases.

Illinois is just the latest front in the med mal cap war.  In fact, a Missouri case is scheduled to be argued in January, and Maryland, Georgia and Oklahoma all have cases pending.

The Missouri case is particularly interesting because the law in that state sought to apply caps on damages retroactively. In the case, James Klotz and his wife Mary won a jury award totaling about $2.5 million from Dr. Michael Shapiro, the Metro Heart Group and St. Anthony’s Medical Center. The appeal involves the non-economic damages, which initially were about $1 million. The trial judge applied the 2005 law — passed after the medical procedure but before the trial — to reduce non-economic damages for Michael Shapiro from about $500,000 to $234,000 and for Mary Shapiro from $220,000 to zero.  The Klotzes argue that the law should not have been applied retroactively to the 2004 medical procedure.

Washington University, Saint Louis University and Missouri University have filed briefs on behalf of the law with caps. They argue that the law is important to limiting medical costs at the university hospitals they operate.

Now that’s a familiar if not increasingly discredited argument.

In fact, just this month, Public Citizen issued a report that found the liability limits in Texas have failed to curb medical costs.  How do I know that’s the conclusion? Because the title of the report is:

Liability Limits in Texas Fail to Curb Medical Costs

Despite the promise that caps on liability instituted in 2003 would reduce costs, lower barriers to insurance and keep doctors from leaving the state, the report found the following:

•    The cost of healthcare in Texas has outpaced the national average
•    The state’s uninsured rate remains the highest in the country
•    The doctor shortage in rural areas has become more acute

So much for the silver bullet of liability caps.  The bottom line is this:  Damages compensate victims who have suffered because of someone else’s negligence, but they also force the system to be careful.  Doctors are more careful because they don’t want to get sued.  I think that’s a good thing.  Careful doctors are better doctors.  Our medical system has become better because of medical malpractice law, not in spite of it.  Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you think.