Federal Judge Upholds Mississippi Cap on Damages
By David Zevan
Jul. 11, 2013 11:20a
There is a cap on non-economic damages of $500,000 in medical malpractice cases in Mississippi, and a federal judge has decided to uphold this law in a ruling regarding a wrongful death lawsuit.
The suit was filed by the family of a woman who was denied a treatment that could have potentially been life-saving for her and her unborn child. She had sought care at the Choctaw Reservation in Neshoba County.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves reviewed the case, reaffirmed the caps, and noted that he believed the Mississippi Supreme Court would deem the caps constitutional.
However, Judge Reeves stated that his perception of these caps is that there is inherent unfairness in them, issuing his decision on June 13, upholding the caps. He said, "All grief is not equal. All pain cannot be reduced to a one-size-fits-all sum. In Mississippi, though, one's suffering at the hands of a health care provider is worth no more than half a million dollars, no matter how egregious, and no matter if your suffering leads to your death, your unborn child's death, and leaves your children orphans. This is offensive."
The plaintiff Kathy Clemons’s attorney, Michael T. Jaques, has said that they are considering appealing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Jacques explained, "This is a unique case in that it was the judge — not a jury — that awarded the damages against the United States in an amount that would compensate the victims for their loss."
Tiara Clemons and her unborn child died in 2010 and her mother Kathy Clemons sued the U.S. government for the loss of her daughter and unborn grandchild that same year.
The Choctaw Health Center on the reservation of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians in Neshoba County, where Kathy Clemons says her daughter was denied potentially life-saving care by emergency room doctors, operated under rules of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Indian Health Service.
Tiara Clemons was transferred to a hospital in Jackson where both she and her unborn child passed away.
In court documents the government admitted that the care that was provided to Clemons at the health center "did not comply with, and fell below, the standard of care" that should have been provided. And the government said that these deficiencies in care, or breaches in care, could be the proximate cause of Tiara Clemons and her child’s deaths.
After the government admitted its wrongdoing, the next step in the case became determining economic and non-economic damages.
Reeves said the law has "a discriminatory effect as Clemons and her family, leaving them without adequate remedy for their very real, serious injuries."
The attorney general’s office responded to Reeves’ request when Reeves asked for them to intervene. "While a few states have invalidated caps on noneconomic damages, the clear trend by state courts has been to uphold statutory caps under both state law and the U.S. Constitution," argued the attorney general’s office in court documents.
But attorneys for the Clemons family argued that because there was no guarantee that the State Supreme Court would uphold the damage limits, Reeves should declare the caps unconstitutional and give the Supreme Court the opportunity to decide.
But Reeves upheld the caps in his June 13 ruling, pointing to another case that did make it to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
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