Pohlman
SALT LAKE CITY - Government entities in Utah will still enjoy protection from blockbuster verdicts in personal injury lawsuits, for now, after the state Supreme Court upheld a cap on damages in a case over an infant’s brain injuries.
A 1989 decision invalidating Utah’s then-damages cap can’t be used by trial lawyers to overturn a 2017 version of the law, it held on June 5 while stopping short of declaring the new cap, which only applies to government defendants in lawsuits, constitutional.
Not only was the 1989 decision a divided opinion with no holding on why the damages cap was unconstitutional, but Utah legislators repealed that law before the decision came down and have subsequently modified it at least two more times. The original damages cap that was struck down was $100,000; it is now $745,000 with the potential for higher awards through a special panel.
“Just as the holding in one case doesn’t automatically apply to a case with different facts, this holding doesn’t automatically apply to a statute with different terms,” the state Supreme Court said in an opinion by Justice Jill M. Pohlman. The high court sent the case back to the trial court for another look at the new cap’s constitutionality.
John and Amelia Tullis sued the University of Utah for medical malpractice after their four-year-old suffered a massive air embolus during surgery in 2019 and was permanently disabled with severe brain damage. The Tullises sought more than $22 million for pain, suffering and future medical expenses.
The University of Utah sought partial summary judgment capping its potential liability at the $745,200 limit under the 2017 law. Salt Lake County Judge Adam Mow denied the motion, citing Condemarin v. University Hospital, the 1989 Utah Supreme Court decision that found an earlier damages cap unconstitutional.
Utah argued Condemarin wasn’t relevant because it was a plurality decision with no controlling theory of why the damages cap was unconstitutional. The decision also reversed the traditional assumption that a statute is constitutional by requiring the defendants to prove it was constitutional. Finally, the legislature passed an entirely new damages cap law in 2004.
Judge Mow disagreed, ruling Condemarin “remains good law.”
“While three justices disagreed as to why the damage cap was unconstitutional, a majority of the Supreme Court agreed that the damage cap in the GIA was unconstitutional,” the trial judge wrote. The legislature may have substituted a new damages cap, the judge went on, but it was still a cap and unconstitutional.
The Utah Supreme Court rejected the judge’s reasoning. First, the 1989 case was subsequently cabined to the specific situation of lawsuits against University Hospital, limiting its precedential value.
Second, there was no controlling holding in that case for today’s court to assess whether the 2017 damages cap was also unconstitutional under the court’s earlier reasoning. The court reversed and remanded for “further proceedings” on whether the cap is unconstitutional.
The state’s plaintiff lawyer group, the Utah Association for Justice, filed an amicus brief urging the court to strike the cap, while state Attorney General Derek Brown filed one defending it.
