West Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Damages Caps
On Wednesday the West Virginia Supreme Court upheld West Virginia's legislative damages caps. Here is the opinion in MacDonald v. City Hospital, Inc. One of the plaintiff's lawyers in the case was Robert Peck, who argued for the plaintiff last week in the Sears v. Learmonth case at the Mississippi Supreme Court.
This is not good news for people hoping that the Mississippi Supreme Court will strike Mississippi's caps in the Sears case.
Well, one distinction would be that MS, like GA (which struck down its caps), says that the right to jury trial "shall be inviolate," which the WV court noted was stronger than the WV clause.
What's more remarkable to me is the way that, once deemed constitutional, these caps ratchet down in subsequent statutes. WV began with a $1M cap and now has $500K/$250K caps. How low will the caps limbo go?
Anderson,
So if the caps are held constitutional, could the legislature amend the statute to eliminate non-economic damages entirely?
THAT, you would think, would be evident as a denial of due process to any court ...
... but $250K seems close to none at all.
On my defense side, I'm annoyed by $1M for dubious slip-and-fall damages, that kind of thing -- but it's obvious that there are some kinds of harm where $1M is entirely appropriate for a lifetime of pain & suffering, and arguably too low.
If the MSSC does uphold them, I would expect some language that anything less than $1M would raise serious concerns. I think $1M is at least arguably within the ballpark; $250K, while adequate to many cases and more than most deserve, clearly does not allow for extreme cases.
How's that for analysis? "I know it when I see it"!