Compromise reached on medical malpractice bill

The Senate has adopted compromise medical malpractice legislation that limits the amount of money that juries can award for the most severe injuries. The compromise, worked out in a conference committee of legislators from both chambers, also retains the limited protection for emergency room doctors that the House version provided.

It passed this afternoon on a vote of 32-9, and heads to the House. Sen. Josh Stein, a Democrat from Raleigh, voted against the conference report because of its cap on noneconomic damages.

The House had capped awards for noneconomic damages – such as pain and suffering, emotional distress and less-tangible injuries – at $500,000. But in cases of death, disfigurement, permanent injury and loss of a body part, there would have been no limit on damages, under the House version.

The conference committee decided that the $500,000 cap for such severe injuries could only be exceeded if patients can prove their doctor was grossly negligent. That’s such a high standard of proof – it occurs in less than 1 percent of cases, Stein said – that a doctor would have to be intoxicated to be found liable, patient advocates say.

That gross negligence standard also originally applied to emergency room doctors, but the House abandoned that standard and said plaintiffs only have to prove that the physicians deviated from the standard of care by clear and convincing evidence. That’s a higher standard of proof than what it is in most civil cases, but far less than gross negligence. The conference report adopts that standard.

Later this evening, the House approved the conference report after a lengthy debate. Several Democrats weren’t willing to accept the Senate’s gross negligence standard on the damages cap. But Rep. Johnathan Rhyne, a Lincoln County Republican, said it was a reasonable compromise.

Rhyne said senators in the conference committee hadn’t been willing to accept much of the House version of the bill until House Speaker Thom Tillis got involved personally.

The final House vote was 62-44. The bill now goes to the governor.