Maryland’s Medical Malpractice Cap on Recovery for Noneconomic Damages


by Robert R. Michael and Kathleen Howard Meredith


In upholding Maryland’s original


legislative cap on noneconomic damages against an equal protection challenge, the Court of Appeals, in Murphy v. Ed- monds, 325 Md. 342, 601 A. 2d (1992), declared it “significant that the cap applies to all personal-injury claimants equally rather than singling out one category of claimants.” Murphy v. Ed- monds, 325, Md. 342, 601 A. 2d (1992) (emphasis added). Our high Court will likely eventually have the opportunity to explain just how “significant” this feature of the original cap legislation was to its determination of constitutionality as Maryland’s much reduced cap on medical-malpractice damage awards,


passed in January, 2005, clearly “singles out” a particular category of claimants for disparate treatment.


Brief History of Maryland’s Cap Legislation


In 1986, the Maryland General As-


sembly established a $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages in all personal injury cases. Cts. & Jud. Proc. Art., Md. Ann. Code, § 11-108. This cap applied to causes of action that arose on or after July 1, 1986. While legislative consid- eration had been given to limiting the original cap to damage awards in medi- cal malpractice cases, this limitation was


rejected in favor of an across-the-board cap for all personal-injury claims. In the years that followed, the original


cap withstood not only the equal-pro- tection challenge mounted in Murphy, supra, but also challenges based on state and federal constitutional provisions, guaranteeing access to the Courts and the right to a jury trial, and a challenge based on the constitutional prohibi- tion against special legislation. See, e.g., University of Maryland Medical System Corporation v. Malory, 143 Md. App. 327, 795 A. 2d 107 (2001). In addition, the original cap legisla-


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tion was judicially interpreted and legislatively modified over the years after its adoption. For example, in United States v. Streidel, 329 Md. 533, 620 A.2d 905 (1993), the Court of Appeals held that the original cap did not apply at all to wrongful-death claims, but only to survival actions commonly prosecuted together with wrongful-death claims.1


In


response to Streidel, supra, the Maryland Legislature in 1994 amended § 11-108 to specifically make noneconomic damages in wrongful-death suits sub- ject to a statutory cap. The Legislature specifically established that a separate, albeit equal, cap on noneconomic ap- plies to wrongful-death claims. Another amendment, however, provided that where there are two or more wrongful- death beneficiaries, the applicable cap on the wrongful- death claim is 150 percent of the otherwise applicable cap. Finally, the 1994 amendments also provided an increase in the cap from $350,000 to $500,000, with a provision for a $15,000


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In a survival action, damages are mea- sured in terms of the harm to the victim; in a wrongful-death action, damages are measured in terms of the harm to others from the loss of the victim. Acands, Inc. v. Asner, 104 Md. App. 608, 657 A.2d 379 (1995), rev’d, remanded, 344 Md. 155, 686 A.2d 250 (1996).


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