Wisconsin Supreme Court Gets It Right
From Business Insurance: (Their news alerts are awesome.)
In its decision Thursday in Matthew Ferdon vs. Wisconsin Patients Compensation Fund, a divided court ruled that the state's cap, currently $445,775, violated the equal protection guarantees of the state constitution.
While this eliminates the cap in only certain cases, it's a start. If anyone has a copy of the decision, please send it my way.
http://www.wicourts.gov/sc/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=19014
Posted by: Rynnieva Moss | July 18, 2005 at 02:36 PM
The decision was on Point of Law the day it came out. A good decision for lawyers, a bad decision for doctors and patients.
Posted by: Ted | July 26, 2005 at 03:39 PM
Thanks! I had no idea it would be 179 pages. Luckily, I've got a plane trip coming up in the near future.
Posted by: Justinian Lane | July 27, 2005 at 05:27 PM
Caps on punitive damages help everybody, and this is certainly a step in the WRONG direction. When a doctor is sued, he pays money not only to a lawyer, but to an insurance company, he is forced to raise the price of his services in order to pay for the raised premium in insurance. Insurance companies arent going to stop raising premiums, so stop the problem at its source: THE PEOPLE. If less doctors are sued, then healthcare costs go down, and everybody benefits. People can sue a doctor for nothing ("if you dont win, we dont get payed" lawyers); its like playing the lottery. $250,000 cap on non-economic damages must be instated today.
Posted by: | March 14, 2006 at 05:41 PM