On October 1, CCL filed a petition for review in Hughes v. Pham, urging the California Supreme Court to grant review of the constitutionality of the state’s $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases under the state constitutional right to trial by jury and the separation of powers doctrine. In the trial court, a jury determined that the plaintiffs were entitled to $3.75 million in damages for noneconomic injuries that included permanent paralysis, pain and suffering, and loss of consortium. Applying California’s cap, the trial judge reduced this portion of the jury’s verdict to $500,000: $250,000 for each plaintiff. The court of appeal recently affirmed the trial court’s decision.

The petition for review on the constitutional issues was written by CCL Senior Litigation Counsel Valerie M. Nannery. The petition argues that the court should grant review to resolve the proper interpretation of the state’s “inviolate” right to a jury trial under the California Constitution, a ground on which it has never reviewed the 1975 cap. The court of appeal’s unpublished decision said that the right to a jury trial “may be modified in furtherance of a legitimate state interest,” a standard not employed in any decision of the California Supreme Court when examining whether the jury trial right is violated and demotes the constitutional provision to the status of mere legislation. The petition urges the court to grant review of the constitutional issues to correct the misapplication of its own precedents and to restore the right to jury trial to the inviolate position that the framers expressed.

Though the damage cap is nearly four decades old, the California Supreme Court has never resolved the constitutional issues presented in the petition. The highest courts of other states, including Georgia and Missouri, recently have struck down caps on damages because they violate the same “inviolate” right to a jury trial protected by their state constitutions. It is time for the California Supreme Court to finally resolve these issues, the Petition argues.

In addition to CCL’s Nannery, the plaintiffs are represented by trial counsel David Bricker of Waters Kraus & Paul in Los Angeles, CA and Burt Rosenblatt of Ely, Bettini, Ulman & Rosenblatt in Phoenix, AZ, as well as Steven B. Stevens in Los Angeles, CA on other issues in the appeal.