Talk:Non-economic damages caps

Tom Baker's Opinion

"Even opponents of tort reform such as Tom Baker acknowledge that caps would reduce insurance rates.[3]"

I deleted this for the time being because the citation does not support the sentence, and it seems misleading if not outright false. Tom Baker, as far as I can tell, believes that "savings" from the caps are minuscule, and would not create appreciable reductions in cost for insurance companies. Furthermore, companies do not always transfer lower costs onto consumers. Obvious examples from other areas are cassettes vs CDs, or VHS vs DVD, where the medium with cheaper manufacturing costs is actually priced higher.

Counter-intuitively, it might the case that state's with non-economic damage caps actually have higher medical malpractice insurance premiums than states that do not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.165.229.88 (talk) 19:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Lack of citations and unsubstantiated claims

In response, tort reform supporters note that the misuse of non-economic compensatory damages to punish defendants for negligence torts that the common law has held do not merit punitive damages is precisely the problem. They sometimes contend that it is very difficult for juries to assign a dollar value to these losses with the guidance they are normally given. They argue that there is no basis for non-economic damages. They allege that uncapped non-economic damages will violate principles of equitable justice by being inherently random, because different juries will necessarily come to different results. Because of the highly charged environment of personal injury trials, there is a risk of unbounded non-economic damages being excessive. (For example, in Ernst v. Merck, a Texas Vioxx products liability case, the jury issued a verdict of $24 million in non-economic damages for a widow who had been married one year to a 59-year-old produce manager with arterosclerosis.) They further argue that the purpose of the tort system is deterrence, rather than to act as social insurance, and that uncapped non-economic damages "overdeter," and thus make everyone worse off for the benefit of a handful of attorneys and a handful of sympathetic plaintiffs who succeed in "lottery litigation." Finally, they note the costs of non-economic damages are eventually passed on in the form of higher prices for goods and services; the fact that individuals do not choose to purchase insurance for "pain and suffering" shows that, ex ante, consumers would be better off if there were not non-economic damages awarded and the price of goods and services were lower.

The writer of this cites nothing. He./she also said that 'because there is no rational basis for non-economic damages" which I changed slightly to "they argue there is no basis...".

Still this is not substantiated. Who claims? Why are there these bald claims with no references? There is also no discussion about the cases that have gone to the Supreme Court about damages, and ratio of punitive to compensatory damages. I don't know if this is just ignorance of the complex formulas that have been litigated, or not. MollyBloom 03:05, 25 June 2006 (UTC) I think this page is way to bent toward Medical Malpractice. Maybe a big part of this should be moved to that definition? Punitive damages have a much larger role than just MP although I would tend to agree that MP is probably the most contentious application of those sorts of damages. Non-economic damages are, by definition, damages i.e. compensatory, meaning that non-economic damages are, by definition, NOT to punish defendants but to compensate for injuries received; that is the instruction juries are given, so to argue juries are "punishing" defendants has little to no merit. Maybe juries give large money judgments, but plaintiff's damages (and therefore plaintiff's compensation) damages can be large (especially in the case of wrongful death). In any case, as a matter of law it is the duty of the jury to determine the dollar value of plaintiff's damages; if the jury decides the plaintiff suffered $1 billion in damages then, as a matter of law, the plaintiff did actually and factually suffer $1 billion in damages (with a small number of exceptions for "runaway juries"). Furthermore, the writer states that there is no basis for non-economic damages; this is plain false. Juries are given jury instruction explaining to them the basis for non-economic damages, not to mention all the precedent case law regarding non-economic damages. Finally, the writer gives Ernst v. Merck as an example of "runaway juries." However, it is far from clear that the $24 million verdict was excessive, especially considering that the verdict was to compensate for the loss of the life of somebody's beloved husband. In other words, I think it is completely reasonable to value a person's life at $24 million. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noober4000 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't represent worldwide perspective

While it is true this page only represents the U.S. perspective, this is only because (as far as I know) the United States is the only country with these sorts of caps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noober4000 (talk • contribs) 17:23, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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