"The plaintiffs’ bar has become fired up about" the McCall ruling, she said. "It’s our job to explain to the courts it’s not as far reaching as the plaintiffs’ bar would like them to think. (McCall) is limited. It doesn’t apply here; it’s prospective only and only applies to per-claim caps."
Dr. Jeff Scott
In Weingrad, the state Supreme Court has the option of ruling on the injury cap’s constitutionality or deciding only whether the limit can be applied retroactively. Other state courts faced with cap retroactivity questions have declined to immediately address constitutional issues. The Missouri Supreme Court for instance, in 2010 ruled that the state’s noneconomic damages cap in medical malpractices cases could not be applied retroactively in Klotz v. St. Anthonys Medical Center.
"The Supreme Court’s opinion was very limited, and they never addressed the overriding issues of the general constitutionality of caps," said J. Thaddeus Eckenrode, a malpractice defense attorney who represented the defendant in the Missouri case. "To that extent, it was surprising, although I think many people thought the court would rule against the use of the caps. All the court held was that in this particular case, since the plaintiff’s cause of action accrued before the new cap law went into effect, that law could not be applied to his case."
However, the same court held in 2012 that Missouri’s noneconomic damages cap violated a plaintiff’s right to a jury trial and overturned the award limit. Other noneconomic damages caps have faced similar challenges recently. The Georgia Supreme Court in 2010 found unconstitutional the state’s $350,000 cap. A proposed ballot measure in California aims to quadruple that state’s $250,000 cap.
Significant conflicts among court precedents exist across the country about the constitutionality of lawsuit award limits, Mr. Eckenrode said.
"Nearly any state’s highest court can find support for their decision to either uphold or throw out caps," he said in an e-mail. "As you examine the notion of caps around the country, you’ll find a relatively even split of states with caps in place and states that have thrown them out. It seems to be a political hotbed issue and, depending on the philosophical leaning of any state’s legislature and/or Supreme Court, one can take a pretty educated guess as to what the immediate future holds for caps in a given state."
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