Yesterday, the Wake County Superior Court heard argument on the constitutionality of North Carolina’s recently enacted cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases. In Kyle v. Kamm, McKenzie, Harden, Smith, Bass, Martson & Saacks, P.L.L.C., et al., the plaintiffs, Janice and Albert Kyle, alleged that the defendants’ negligence injured them in 2009 and 2010. In June 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly passed, over the veto of Governor Beverly Perdue, a cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.

By the terms of the law, it applies to all actions filed on or after October 1, 2011, regardless of when the negligence occurred or when the claims accrued. The plaintiffs filed their medical negligence action within the statute of limitations for their claims, but after the effective date of the new law. In their complaint, the plaintiffs included a claim under North Carolina’s Declaratory Judgment Act seeking a declaration that the cap on damages is unconstitutional. Plaintiffs moved for judgment on the pleadings on their declaratory count on the grounds that the law is unconstitutionally retroactive as applied to them. CCL’s Valerie M. Nannery and North Carolina attorney Adam Stein participated in the hearing on behalf of the plaintiffs, arguing that the cap on damages cannot be applied to the plaintiffs’ causes of action that accrued before the effective date of the law because such a retroactive application of the law would impair the plaintiffs’ vested rights in violation of the North Carolina Constitution.