A California consumer group is
currently circulating a petition to increase the statutory cap on
noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases from the current
$250,000 amount to over $1,000,000. If this initiative
petition gets on the ballot and is approved by the voters, people
injured in California by a doctor's negligence or incompetence would
be able to recover many times more than similarly injured people in
Colorado.
The group behind the petition, Consumer
Watchdog California, says that it merely wants to adjust the
damages cap for inflation, something which has never been done since
the first passage of the Medical
Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) in 1975. Without adjusting
for inflation, $250,000 in 1975 is worth only about $58,000 today,
small comfort to a person seriously injured by a doctor's medical
negligence or incompetence.
Colorado Caps Started Out Behind the
Times and Stayed There
When Colorado first put a cap on
medical malpractice damages in 1986, it used the $250,000 figure that
California had passed 11 years prior. But $250,000 in 1986 was
already a paltry equivalence $123,000 in 1975. $250,000 in 1975 was
really equal to $509,000 in 1986, according to the Consumer
Price Index Inflation Calculator, so using the outdated
California sum severely restricted the rights of injured persons to
fair compensation.
Colorado has adjusted its damages cap
only one time since 1986 - to $300,000 in 2003. At the same time,
however, the legislature also brought damages for physical impairment
and disfigurement under the cap, overturning a decision to the
contrary by the Colorado Supreme Court in Preston
v. Dupont and lessening the total compensation one could recover
in such cases rather than increasing it.
Under current Colorado
law, noneconomic damages are meant to compensate the injured
person for their pain and suffering, inconvenience, emotional stress,
physical impairment or disfigurement, and impairment of the quality
of life, up to a total of $300,000 in most cases. At Paulsen &
Armitage, LLC, our attorneys have decades of experience seeking the
maximum compensation available for victims of medical malpractice in
Colorado. If you have been injured due to a doctor's incompetence or
medical neglect in Denver or anywhere statewide, contact
Paulsen & Armitage, LLC for a free consultation with one of
our experienced Colorado personal injury lawyers.
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