CCL President Robert S. Peck spoke to researchers at the RAND Institute for Civil Justice March 19 in Santa Monica, California, about the constitutionality of damage cap statutes and why they should almost never pass constitutional muster. He began his talk by describing the decision by the Florida Supreme Court last week that struck that state's cap on wrongful death damages in medical malpractice cases.  Peck had served as counsel in the case, Estate of McCall v. United States, and had argued it before the Florida Supreme Court. The Court held that the cap, which imposed both a per claim limit and an overall incident limit, violated due process because claimants' damages were reduced arbitrarily on the basis of the number of claimants injured.

Peck also discussed other constitutional bases for challenging damage caps, including the right to trial by jury, open court provisions, and separation of powers, using other CCL cases, such as Watts v. Lester E. Watts Med. Ctrs. (Mo. 2012) and Lebron v. Gottlieb Mem. Hosp. (Ill. 2010), as exemplars of the other approaches.