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According to Gary Wais, a Baltimore malpractice lawyer with Wais Law, a Baltimore malpractice law firm Maryland malpractice settlements are going up slightly as the cap is lifted by 15,000 dollars each year. The cap, which attorney Wais is referring to is the statutory cap on non-economic damages assessed in medical malpractice cases. Traditionally, juries have frequently been swayed emotionally to award large sums of money for the non-economic damage incurred as a result of physician negligence. However, physician organizations have claimed that these large settlements are driving up the cost of medical care. Insurance companies claim the large pay-outs in medical malpractice cases for pain and suffering and other non-economic damages have required them to sharply increase the cost of medical malpractice insurance. In response to these complaints, state legislators put caps on the amount of non-economic damages that could be awarded. The legal caps are different in every state, some states, for example, have no caps, some states have caps on physician fees and on punitive damages and seven states have repealed the caps in rulings that declared them to be unconstitutional. According to accurate studies, rising malpractice claims are responsible for only a small fraction of the rise in medical costs. According to many of the giant insurers, medical malpractice caps do help to control spending, but practically speaking they only lead to a 1% savings in costs. Such a small increase in cost can hardly be held responsible for the overall rise in medical costs, which far exceeds 1%. Recently, unhappiness with the caps has led to actions which has caused some states to repeal them. The caps have been attacked as being unconstitutional in that they put unnatural controls on the thinking of juries and judges during the trial process. As one lawmaker put it, "Damage caps (which are essentially artificial and arbitrary limits placed on the amount of financial compensation that a victim of medical malpractice can receive) completely negate the judgment and intelligence of juries, who are trusted enough to vote in officials and put people to death." Judges as well as juries are unable to exercise their full independent thought during malpractice trials. Every case of malpractice is different and has its own unique facts and circumstances, and it is reasonable to assume that occasionally a Judge will feel that a plaintiff deserves more in no-economic damage than the state cap will allow. While seven states, as noted above, have alredy repealed the caps, this past November of 2010 the Maryland Appellate court turned down a similar effort to repeal the caps in Maryland. The current limit for non-economic damage in Maryland is just under $700,000, nevertheless, courts can still deliver monster settlements to claimants. Monster settlements can still occur when the injury inflicted on a client by a negligent physician, results in large loss of earning and large medical care bills. The recent case in Maryland concerned a child who was born with cerebral palsy after the physician failed to properly inform the family of all their treatment options during the last 40 days of the pregnancy. The child was severely injured and will have massive medical bills to pay his entire life. Juries have been known to increase the amount of money awarded for economic damages as compensation for the cap on the non-economic damages. While theoretically malpractice settlements might be bolstered by large penalty damage assessments levied against Doctors who acted with malicious intent, in fact, this rarely occurs. To win penalty damages in Maryland, for example, a claimant would have to show that the physician acted with malice against the patient, and this rarely occurs. Most negligent physicians have erred in the treatment rendered to the patient; however, they have no particular grudge against the victims of their sub-standard care.
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According to Gary Wais, a Baltimore malpractice lawyer with Wais Law, a Baltimore malpractice law firm, Maryland malpractice settlements are going up 15,000 dollars each year.
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