Will another state’s highest court find "caps" on damages unconstitutional?
Maryland’s highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals, is set to hear a case that may decide the constitutionality of a state law placing mandatory caps on the amount a jury is permitted to order to compensate an injured plaintiff at trial. Maryland has a general liability cap on non-economic damages awards of $1,000,000. That means that a jury cannot order that victims who are injured severely enough to warrant a larger verdict cannot do so under the present law. In the case under review a jury found that the victim of medical malpractice error should be compensated $4,000,000 in non-economic damages (non-economic damages are those damages other than medical expenses or wage loss – like pain and suffering or punitive damages). That verdict was subsequently reduced to $1,000,000 under the statute. The plaintiff in the case appealed the result arguing that the cap was an unconstitutional violation of equal protection rights.
You may remember our previous post on a similar issue in Illinois where that high court struck down statutory caps on jury verdicts as unconstitutional. Over the past decade, under a misguided attempt to lower medical malpractice premiums, many states around the country have enacted similar statutes to “cap” the amount a jury is able to find a victim should be compensated. Essentially these laws substitute the government’s opinion for that of twelve honest jurors who have listened to the evidence in a trial and rendered a verdict. It attempts to eviscerate the very foundation of the American legal system – trial by jury and the wisdom of our fellow man. Let us hope the Plaintiff in the Maryland case is successful in the fight against disingenuous and misguided attempts at “tort reform.”
