Ga. justices skeptical of bid to cap medical malpractice awards
Georgia Supreme Court justices seemed skeptical after two separate medical malpractice cases resurfaced the question of whether the state can place a cap on money awarded by juries in wrongful death lawsuits.
At issue in the cases is a law the court already overturned in 2010. The law put a limit of $350,000 on jury awards in medical malpractice claims, but the court found in its earlier ruling that such a limit, called a statutory cap, unfairly takes power from the jury.
The Georgia Constitution outlines a right to have a jury decide the amount of damages, the court found, so a law limiting those damages is unconstitutional.
However, two cases argued in front of the Supreme Court Tuesday brought the issue to the forefront once again, with justices spending the majority of their time questioning attorneys for the parties about whether a right to a jury trial on wrongful death claims dated back to Georgia’s first Constitution in 1793.
Justices seemed inclined to affirm their 2010 decision rather than set new precedent. Last year, the court declined to determine whether a cap on wrongful-death damages did in fact violate the constitutional right to a jury trial, instead remanding that case back to the lower court for further review on the damages.
But Justice Verda M. Colvin wrote in a concurring opinion that when there was a case where the issue of whether or not the cap violates the constitutional right to a jury trial, the court should reexamine whether or not it correctly decided its constitutionality.
On Tuesday, Colvin said that she was worried her concern last year was “misguided” after hearing arguments from attorneys.
One case involves April Clark, who underwent abdominal surgery to remove a cyst on her ovary but later died following complications. Wrongful death claims were brought by Clark’s surviving husband and her daughter against Dr. Thomas Leigh, Dr. William Shirley and OB/GYN Specialists, for conscious pain, suffering and medical bills, according to court records.
A trial resulted in a Bibb County jury awarding Clark’s family more than $33 million.
In post-trial motions, defendants argued that the judgment must be limited to $350,000 as stated in Georgia law. The trial court sided with that argument and reduced the award accordingly.
In the second case, Holly Ann Baumstark underwent a Caesarian section delivery in July 2019, but a series of complications resulted in Baumstark losing almost all of her blood, according to court documents. She was taken to the intensive care unit, but her condition continued to worsen, and she died the next day.
After trial, the jury awarded her family $42 million, along with $12 million being awarded for fees and expenses, for a total judgment of $54 million.
The only doctor out of seven originally sued that went to trial in that case, argued that the trial court should have applied the statutory cap and limited the judgment to the $350,000.
In the Clark case, the judge agreed with the defendant’s assertion that, because there was no jury trial right for wrongful death claims back then, the cap was not unconstitutional.
Attorney Lloyd Bell, who is not involved in either case but represents a family in a separate wrongful death lawsuit, said it will be up to the justices to decide whether Georgia citizens have the fundamental right to decide these types of disputes in front of a jury or whether that will instead be set by the statute.
The statutory cap, he said, protects the interests of insurance companies and health care systems. But the justices’ questions were angled in favor of blocking the cap, he said.
“We’re confident. We’re encouraged by the questions, the detail of the questions, the thoughtfulness of the questions, that the Supreme Court is going to get it right,” Bell said.
Multiple briefs were filed in Baumstark’s case by the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, the Georgia Hospital Association and the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, asking the court to reverse its 2010 ruling and allow the cap to be implemented in future medical malpractice cases.
In a brief, Attorney General Chris Carr’s office wrote that if the 2010 ruling is left alone, it will “continue to needlessly infect this Court’s cases—and stifle legislation—for decades to come" and encouraged the court to overturn the previous ruling.
Families of victims who have died or suffered due to medical malpractice, along with members of Voices of Families for Justice, gathered in front of the Supreme Court to call for the court to affirm the 2010 decision and leave the $350,000 cap as unconstitutional.
“We believe that if you were to put in a cap of $350,000, that will not be able to adequately amount to the amount of pain and the hole that has been left in our family,” Shannon McGuffie, who lost her daughter after a 20-week pregnancy, said. “We are forever broken. We are forever damaged.”
McGuffie was 20 weeks pregnant with her daughter, Halo Skye, when she went for an anatomy scan and was told everything was fine. But a couple of days later, she noticed bleeding and went to the hospital after her OB-GYN refused to see her.
At the hospital, McGuffie said she was ignored for hours, and it wasn’t until the early morning hours that she went into labor, but her daughter was already dead.
“We should be at home teaching her how to walk, talk, eat. ... Sitting in a courtroom watching people argue about whether a cap should be placed on human lives is absolutely ridiculous,” Drew McGuffie, Halo’s father, said.
Kayla Cannon, who was one of 11 patients who sued Atlanta cosmetic surgeon Harvey “Chip” Cole, after he left their faces permanently damaged and disfigured, said limiting the amount that can be awarded would be unfair and would minimize the pain and suffering people have gone through.
“No amount of money fixes what happened, but limiting it doesn’t feel like justice, and it doesn’t truly hold anyone accountable,” Cannon said in a statement.
Justices have two terms of court to issue an opinion, per Georgia law, meaning a ruling might not come until this fall.
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