(The Center Square) – Upholding state law on the maximum amount of noneconomic damages for medical liability earned North Carolina one of the few positives within release of the otherwise unflattering Judicial Hellholes report from the American Tort Reform Foundation.
In its Points of Light section, the state Court of Appeals – a panel of 12 Republicans and three Democrats – unanimously upheld the state law of $656,730 for maximum damages, the report says. For the case under scrutiny, Mohebali v. Hayes, the plaintiff in an at-home birthing was awarded $7.5 million.
Trial court reduced the award to the statutory limit, and the plaintiff challenged the constitutionality of the law as an infringement on the right to a jury trial. The appellate court ruled, the report says, “courts must defer to duly enacted statutes unless proven unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The case also started in 2019, seven years after installment of the damages cap by the General Assembly. This means no right preexisting or vested was impaired, the report said.
American Tort Reform says the Points of Light “typically comprise noteworthy actions taken by judges and lawmakers to stem abuses of the civil justice system not detailed elsewhere in the report.”
The Judicial Hellhole report has been published annually since 2002 by the American Tort Reform Foundation. It seeks to cite “various abuses within the civil justice system, focusing primarily on jurisdictions where courts have been radically out of balance.”
