Wisconsin Judge Declares Cap on Medical Malpractice Damages Unconstitutional in the Case of a Woman Whose Four Limbs Were Amputated
On May 24, 2011, Ascaris Mayo went to the emergency room at Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee, complaining of a fever and acute abdominal pain. Ms. Mayo was treated for uterine fibroids but was not told that she may have an infection that could be treated with antibiotics, a condition which was considered by the doctors in their differential diagnosis. Ms. Mayo did in fact have an infection, and because it went untreated, the infection became septic, and Ms. Mayo wound up having all four of her limbs amputated.
In her medical malpractice lawsuit, the jury awarded Ms. Mayo $25.3 million. $16.5 million of that award was for so-called “non-economic damages,” including $15 million for Ms. Mayo’s pain and suffering and $1.5 million for her husband’s loss of companionship with his wife. Pursuant to Wisconsin law, the defendants moved to reduce the $16.5 million portion to $750,000, which is the limit a plaintiff can receive for noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.
The judge refused to do it, however. In his decision in Mayo v. Wisconsin Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund, the judge held that it would be unconstitutional to apply the damages cap in this case. The supposed justifications for damages caps are that they help contain doctors’ insurance premiums and overall health care costs by restraining “runaway juries” from making outrageous awards. However, the judge held that here the amount of the award was not at all disproportionate to the injury. Also, in Wisconsin medical malpractice judgments over $1 million are paid out of a state fund built up from doctors’ insurance premiums, and this fund is currently valued at over $1 billion, so that paying the full amount of the claim should not result in increased physician insurance premiums or a rise in health care costs to the public. Since there is no “rational relation” between the arguments for the damages cap and applying the cap in this case, it would be unconstitutional to do so, according to the judge. Not surprisingly, the case is expected to be appealed.
New Jersey law does not currently place a cap on non-economic damages in cases of medical malpractice, but a movement is afoot to get them in the Garden State. A $250,000 cap was introduced in the 2010-2011 legislative session as Assembly Bill A1367 and again in the 2012-2013 session as A966. Both times it was referred to committee but not voted out. This bill has again been introduced in the current session as A593 and is currently in committee. An identical bill, S1733, is also in committee in the Senate.
