Florida’s medical malpractice caps will be going to the state’s Supreme Court to face a constitutional challenge.
Florida has had a medical malpractice cap in place for at least eight years since it brought in a limit of $1 million for pain and suffering damages in medical negligence cases. The family of a deceased Florida woman is challenging that cap due to their case involving medical malpractice.
This story involves a 20-year-old woman who received prenatal care in 2005 from the USAF family practice department. Her pregnancy was normal until the last trimester when she was diagnosed with hypertension and preeclampsia. Things went from bad to worse from this point on.
When she was diagnosed with high blood pressure and severe preeclampsia, labor had to be induced immediately. Rather than sending the woman to the ob-gyn department, the family practice area kept providing medical care. She was eventually transferred to a medical center where she experienced full-fledged contractions. This weakened over time and an obstetrician was called to perform a C-section.
When the doctor arrived, the woman had resumed normal labor and they let her deliver vaginally. She lost an enormous volume of blood that her family became concerned about it. Health care providers said it was normal and the woman was stable. The placenta was not delivered and the family practice doctors would not extract it. The doctor was called at 2:35 a.m. and removed the placenta within five minutes. At this point, the woman’s blood pressure had dropped rapidly and was fatally low for more than two hours, as the nursing staff did not tell the doctors about the pressure drop.
The obstetrician also repaired vaginal tearing, which took about an hour. The nurse assisting him indicated the woman’s vital signs were stable, but neglected to tell him her blood pressure was dropping even further. The doctor exclusively relied on the nurse’s readings and did not check for himself. The doctor ordered an immediate blood count and transfusion if needed. The family practice department ordered a blood test 40 minutes later. Another 40 minutes passed before a nurse went to take blood from the woman, who by that time had died. She had suffered severe shock and had gone into cardiac arrest.
In other words, the woman was in need of prompt medical care to save her life but instead was left for more than an hour before anyone checked on her. She never regained consciousness and was taken off life support in February of 2006.
Her family sued and won a $3 million judgment, with $2 million earmarked as damages for pain and suffering. But, because Florida has a cap on non-economic damages, the award was reduced by half. The family is now appealing to the Florida Supreme Court, stating the cap violates the state constitution. At issue here is the very real conundrum of what to do in situations like this when medical negligence is so egregious that there needs to be non-economic damages to prove a point.
Someone needs to be held responsible for the medical malpractice. In this case it is even worse when you consider a baby has no mother and a young woman has lost her life because she was not monitored properly in the hospital for a life-threatening condition.
Limiting jury awards in cases like this does not reduce doctor medical malpractice liability premiums, nor does it ensure quality medical care for everyone because there is a cap in place. It is arbitrary and unfair to penalize seriously harmed victims in order to save money and shift liability off the shoulders of a negligent medical professional. To put it more bluntly, why do victims of medical negligence have to suffer further for the mistakes of medical professionals? Something is wrong with this picture.
Charlie Donahue is a New Hampshire personal injury lawyer located in Keene. Donahue handles injury cases in New Hampshire and across the United States. To learn more about New Hampshire injury attorney, Charlie Donahue, visit Donahuelawfirm.com.
