A New Mexico District Court declared the state's 1976 limits on medical malpractice damages unconstitutional in a decision where CCL President Robert S. Peck testified as an expert witness. The cap would have reduced a $2.6 million jury verdict to $600,000 plus medical expenses had the cap not been invalidated.

    The court held that the cap violated the inviolate right to trial by jury in the New Mexico Constitution. Because the statutory cause of action created in 1976 to create the cap was duplicative of the preeexisting common-law cause of action for medical malpractice, the court ruled that the jury's authority in the case was set by the Constitution, which requires that the right to a jury trial exists "inviolate" from how it was "heretofore" practiced. The constitutional authority of the jury includes both the determination of the facts presented at trial and the damages incurred.

    The case, Siebert v. Okun, is likely to be appealed by the defendant-physician.