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By J. Stuart Adams
Senator, District 22

Today, the Senate passed the 3rd substitute of Senate Bill 145 – Medical Malpractice Amendments. This bill has been changed a few times, but the most current version of the bill does 3 things:

• This bill hard caps non-economic damages that may be awarded in a malpractice action at $450,000. Non-economic damages are sometimes referred to as the compensation for the pain and suffering caused by the malpractice. The current cap for non-economic damages ranges from $480,000-$500,000 and above. We also took out the inflationary increases so the total will remain $450,000 throughout the years.

• A main purpose of this bill is to stop lawsuits that have no merit. Before a lawsuit is brought forward, a pre-litigation panel decides if the lawsuit has merit. Even if the panel decides the lawsuit has no merit, it can go forward. This bill requires someone to file an affidavit of merit by a healthcare provider in a related field before a non-meritorious action can proceed. If affidavit is fraudulent, the penalty falls on the law firm bringing the lawsuit forward.

• People working for the hospital are agents of the hospital. However, there are many employees who are independent agents of the hospital. This bill relieves the liability from the hospital if one of those independent agents is the one who caused the damage.

My hope in running this bill is to stop those non-meritorious claims from being brought forward.

If you have any further questions, let me know.

1 Comments:

 Adano said...

Taking out inflationary adjustments is a sneaky way of making the $450,000 get smaller and smaller (in real terms) as time goes by. Put the inflationary increase back in!

3/04/2010 8:56 AM  

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