Opinion ID: 1787098
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Damage Cap Helps Ensure Adequate Compensation at Reasonable Cost

Text: ś 239. The majority's first legislative objective, ensuring adequate compensation for plaintiffs, is not explicitly listed in the statutory findings. Nevertheless, it represents a reasonable summation of the whole purpose of Chapter 655 and exposes the absurdity of this court's holding that medical residents are not covered by Chapter 655. See Phelps v. Physicians Ins. Co., 2005 WI 85, 282 Wis. 2d 69, 698 N.W.2d 643. ś 240. As Justice Roggensack carefully explains in her dissent, Wisconsin's patients compensation system guarantees unlimited coverage of economic damages obtained in a settlement or at trial. It requires doctors to purchase liability insurance coverage and requires health care providers to pay annual assessments into the Fund. Thus, a cap helps ensure predictable and certain compensation for medical malpractice patients. ś 241. By contrast, plaintiffs in other kinds of tort cases, even wrongful death suits in which there is a statutory cap, sometimes may be able to prove more than a million dollars in noneconomic damages but they are rarely able to recover that amount from defendants. That is why underinsured motorist coverage is so important in motor vehicle accidents. ś 242. The majority belittles Ferdon's $410,000 award in noneconomic damages to supplement his $403,000 award for future medical expenses. This money will be paid. How many motorists purchase $500,000 in liability coverage in the event they injure another motorist, or $500,000 in underinsured motorist coverage for situations in which they are injured by another driver? If Ferdon were to suffer an equivalent injury in a work-related accident, would workers' compensation payments even come close to the total payment in this case? ś 243. To understand the stabilizing effect of the noneconomic damage cap, one must understand the nature of the unreformed medical malpractice liability system. Taken as a whole, the [unreformed] medical liability system appears to be, quite simply, ineffective at consistently penalizing negligence. Appropriate acts of medical care can easily result in large damage awards, while true acts of negligence go unpunished. [8] According to some studies, close to 70% of claims result in no payment, while a small amount of claims result in huge payments. [9] Because of frustration with the system, only about 1.5 percent of patients actually injured by medical malpractice even file a claim. [10] ś 244. The Wisconsin Commissioner of Insurance recently extolled the predictability and stability the statutory cap brings to the medical malpractice legal arena. [11] Caps may contribute to an increased percentage of settlements, because plaintiffs are aware that unlimited noneconomic damages are not available. ś 245. The majority focuses all its attention on the few medical malpractice patients who do not benefit from the statutory scheme. This small minority of cases does not make the statutory scheme irrational.