Opinion ID: 835357
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Plaintiff's claim against the individual defendants

Text: Having concluded that the common law in Oregon in 1857 would not have recognized a cause of action for negligence against OHSU, we now address whether the OTCA's elimination of a cause of action against the individual defendants, combined with its damages limitation, survives scrutiny under Article I, section 10. As we noted earlier, the Oregon Constitution guarantees that every man shall have remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, property, or reputation. Or. Const., Art. I, § 10. On review, defendants offer several arguments supporting their assertion that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the application of the OTCA in this case violated the remedy Clause. First, defendants contend that Article I, section 10, guarantees only that a remedy of some kind be available, not that the remedy be of any certain type or amount. Therefore, in defendants' view, because plaintiff here has a remedy available to him in the form of an action against OHSU, there is no Article I, section 10, infirmity. Second, defendants assert that the Court of Appeals erred in comparing the amount of damages available under the OTCA to the amount of damages claimed by plaintiff. Defendants argue that substantial, as that term had been used in this court's Remedy Clause jurisprudence, does not call for such a comparison; instead, defendants contend that substantial refers to the remedial process or, at the very most, that a substitute remedy need only be one that is not illusory or the practical equivalent of no remedy at all. [10] From the foregoing, the state contends that the court should review a legislatively substituted remedy on a categorical basis only. Put another way, the state suggests that the determination of whether a substitute remedy is adequate should not focus on the facts of an individual case, but instead should focus on the balance struck by the legislature in creating a substitute remedy. The state asserts that, unless a category of potential plaintiffs is left without a remedy, the legislative policy choice is conclusive. On the other hand, plaintiff contends that the Remedy Clause protects both the procedure for seeking redress as well as the substance of that redress. Plaintiff argues further that, when the legislature abolishes a common-law remedy, it must provide a remedy that is substantially equivalent to the common-law remedy. This court has addressed Article I, section 10, challenges to the OTCA on three prior occasions. In Hale, this court rejected an Article I, section 10, challenge to the OTCA as applied to an action brought against the City of Portland (City) and the Port of Portland (Port). Hale, 308 Or. at 517-24, 783 P.2d 506. The plaintiff in that case suffered injuries stemming from an alleged failure of the City and the Port to maintain a road. Id. at 511, 783 P.2d 506. The plaintiff's medical expenses totaled more than $600,000; however, upon motion by the City and Port, the trial court struck the plaintiff's claim for damages in excess of the $100,000 damages limitation in effect at the time and entered judgment against the City and the Port for $100,000. Id. On review, the plaintiff challenged the constitutionality of that damages limitation. Id. The court in Hale first concluded that the Port would have been immune from liability at common law; therefore, the damages limitation did not deny plaintiff any right he ha[d] against the Port by virtue of the guarantee in Oregon Constitution Article I, section 10, because there never was such a right. Id. at 518, 783 P.2d 506. The court reached a different conclusion regarding the City, and therefore went on to analyze the damages limitation as to the plaintiff's claim against the City. Id. at 521-24, 783 P.2d 506. The court explained that Article I, section 10, permits the legislature to alter a common-law remedy, so long as the party injured is not left entirely without a remedy.    [T]he remedy need not be precisely of the same type or extent; it is enough that the remedy is a substantial one.  Id. at 523, 783 P.2d 506 (emphasis added). In upholding the OTCA's damages limitation, Hale emphasized that the legislature had struck a new balance between municipal corporations and potential plaintiffs. Id. The court concluded that the remedy available to plaintiff was substantial because, although the OTCA reduced the size of the potential recovery, it also expanded the class of plaintiffs that could recover by not requiring a plaintiff to demonstrate that the municipal corporation was engaged in a proprietary activity when it injured that plaintiff. Id. The court described that quid pro quo as follows: A benefit has been conferred, but a counterbalancing burden has been imposed. This may work to the disadvantage of some, while it will work to the advantage of others. But all who had a remedy continue to have one. This may not be what plaintiff wants. It may not even be what this court, if it were in the business of making substantive law on this subject, would choose to enact. But it is within the legislature's authority to enact in spite of the limitations of the Oregon Constitution, Article I, section 10. Id. at 523, 783 P.2d 506. Justice Linde concurred separately, asserting that the court has allowed legislative immunization of cities from tort liability only on condition that the individuals who are personally responsible for harm qualifying as a legal injury remain liable. Id. at 530, 783 P.2d 506. Because Hale included no claim against individual public officers, Justice Linde agreed with the court's conclusion. Id. The court next addressed the OTCA's constitutionality under Article I, section 10, in Neher v. Chartier, 319 Or. 417, 879 P.2d 156 (1994). In that case, the plaintiff's adult daughter was struck and killed by a bus operated by Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet). Id. at 420, 879 P.2d 156. The plaintiff brought a wrongful death action against TriMet and the bus driver. Id. at 420-21, 879 P.2d 156. The defendants moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that they were immune from liability under ORS 30.265(3)(a), [11] because the decedent was covered by the workers' compensation law at the time of her death. Id. at 421, 879 P.2d 156. The trial court granted the defendants' motion. Id. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Id. at 421-22, 879 P.2d 156. On review, the plaintiff argued that the $3,000 burial benefit available to a decedent's estate under the workers' compensation scheme, if it is the only remedy available for wrongful death at the hands of a public employee, is a denial of a substantial remedy, in violation of Article I, section 10. Id. at 422, 879 P.2d 156. The court agreed, explaining that ORS 30.265(3)(a) denied the decedent's surviving parents a remedy that they would have been entitled to under the wrongful death statutes. Id. at 426-27, 879 P.2d 156. The court emphasized that ORS 30.265(3)(a) abolished the parents' remedy against both the municipality and the allegedly negligent employees of the municipality. Id. at 428, 879 P.2d 156. Therefore, the court concluded that ORS 30.265(3)(a) violated Article I, section 10. Id. [12] Most recently, in Jensen, 334 Or. at 417-21, 51 P.3d 599, this court addressed whether ORS 30.265(1), on its face, violated Article I, section 10. Jensen was a case involving certified questions from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. Id. at 415, 51 P.3d 599. The plaintiff in that case alleged that a foster parent abused her daughter while she was in the custody of the Children Services Division of the State of Oregon (CSD). Id. at 416, 51 P.3d 599. The plaintiff alleged that individual agents and employees of CSD were negligent. Id. The individual defendants moved to strike and dismiss the claims against them and to substitute the state as the sole defendant pursuant to ORS 30.265(1). Id. While that motion was pending, the plaintiff moved the district court to certify questions to this court as to the constitutionality of ORS 30.265(1). Id. This court declined to consider any of the certified questions presented as as-applied challenges to ORS 30.265(1); instead, the court considered only facial challenges to that statute. Id. at 415-16, 51 P.3d 599. Addressing the facial challenge under Article I, section 10, this court applied the two-step analysis governing Article I, section 10, claims set forth in Smothers, 332 Or. at 124, 23 P.3d 333: [O]ur first step is to determine whether the injury that plaintiff has alleged is one for which the remedy clause guarantees a remedy. If we answer that question affirmatively, and if the legislature has abolished that common-law claim, then our second step is to determine whether the legislature has provided a constitutionally adequate substitute remedy for that abolished common-law claim. Jensen, 334 Or. at 418, 51 P.3d 599 (internal citation omitted). The court assumed, without deciding, that the injury alleged was one for which Article I, section 10, guarantees a remedy. Id. The court then analyzed whether ORS 30.265(1), which required the plaintiff to bring an action against the public body alone, provided a constitutionally adequate substitute remedy. Id. at 418-21, 51 P.3d 599. The court concluded that the OTCA was capable of constitutional application. Id. at 421, 51 P.3d 599. The court reasoned: Because the damages `cap' is not implicated in every case, and because a damages award has yet to be determined in this case, the damages `cap' does not render the remedy available to plaintiff `incapable of restoring the right that has been injured.' Id. at 421, 51 P.3d 599 (quoting Smothers, 332 Or. at 119-20, 23 P.3d 333). This court therefore held that ORS 30.265(1) does not, on its face, violate Article I, section 10. Jensen, 334 Or. at 421, 51 P.3d 599. Article I, section 10, cases outside of the OTCA context also provide guidance. For example, in Greist v. Phillips, 322 Or. 281, 291, 906 P.2d 789 (1995), this court held a statutory substitute remedy to be substantial. In that case, the court reviewed the application of the damages limitation set forth in ORS 18.560 [13] to a wrongful death claim. Id. at 284, 906 P.2d 789. [14] Following a trial, the jury awarded economic damages of $100,000 and noneconomic damages of $1.5 million to the decedent's personal representative. Id. at 286, 906 P.2d 789. Pursuant to ORS 18.560, the trial court reduced the noneconomic damages to $500,000. Id. On review, the plaintiff argued that, among other things, the trial court's application of ORS 18.560 to reduce her noneconomic damages award violated Article I, section 10. Id. at 290, 906 P.2d 789. The court rejected that argument, citing Hale and Neher for the proposition that Article I, section 10, is not violated so long as the party injured is not left without a substantial remedy. Id. at 290-91, 906 P.2d 789. The court concluded that the $600,000 total remedy that plaintiff received under ORS 18.560 was substantial, emphasizing that statutory wrongful death actions in Oregon historically had been subject to low limits of recovery and that the statute contained no limit on economic damages. Id. at 291, 906 P.2d 789. In Smothers, the court addressed whether the legislature ha[d] deprived plaintiff of a means for seeking redress for [his] injury   . Smothers, 332 Or. at 120 n. 19, 23 P.3d 333 (emphasis in original). Although Smothers did not illuminate the contours of what constitutes a remedy under Article I, section 10, and, in fact, did not address the restorative aspect of the Remedy Clause at all, Smothers did observe that Article I, section 10, does not freeze[] in place common-law remedies. Id. at 119, 23 P.3d 333. Instead, the legislature may alter common-law remedies, but may not substitute an `emasculated remedy' that is incapable of restoring the right that has been injured. Id. at 119-20, 23 P.3d 333 (quoting West v. Jaloff, 113 Or. 184, 195, 232 P. 642 (1925)). [15] In sum, this court consistently has held that Article I, section 10, is not merely an aspirational statement, but was intended by the framers of the Oregon Constitution to preserve for future generations, against legislative or other encroachment, the right to obtain a remedy for injury to interests in person, property, and reputation under circumstances in which Oregon law provided a remedy for those injuries when Oregon ratified its constitution. See, e.g., Smothers, 332 Or. at 124, 23 P.3d 333 (At a minimum, to be remedy by due course of law, the statutory remedy must be available for the same wrongs or harms for which the common-law cause of action existed in 1857.). However, as our review of the cases demonstrates, Article I, section 10, does not eliminate the power of the legislature to vary and modify both the form and the measure of recovery for an injury, as long as it does not leave the injured party with an emasculated version of the remedy that was available at common law. The constitution's terms do not identify what would constitute an impermissible deprivation of a remedy by due course of law for injury done   . Or. Const., Art. I, § 10. That phrase embodying (as it does) an affirmative guarantee of government action rather than a more familiar restraint on particular lawmaking or a procedural mandate, has produced some degree of inconsistency in our cases. It may be that some of the inconsistency stems from an erroneous consideration of Article I, section 10, as a due process of law clause. See Perozzi, 149 Or. at 350, 40 P.2d 1009 (so holding). [16] Other problems arise when, understandably, litigants advocate for modes of analysis and formulas without regard to the context in which this court has discussed them. For example, in Hale, the court determined that a limited remedy against public bodies for personal injury was permissible. However, the court in Hale had no occasion to consider the constitutionality of a liability scheme that altered the common-law right of a personal injury victim to bring an action against any individual tortfeasor for the full damage amount. Hale, 308 Or. at 530, 783 P.2d 506 (Linde, J., concurring) (this case presents no claim against public `officers or employees or agents,' ORS 30.265). Similarly, Greist involved the special context of a statutory limitation on a remedy that the legislature itself had created for wrongful death and, like Hale, did not consider a limit on a common-law remedy against an individual tortfeasor. See Greist, 322 Or. at 290-91, 906 P.2d 789 (describing context of dispute). Smothers represents a more recent effort by this court to identify the substance of the remedy guarantee in the context of a personal injury incurred by a plaintiff while working for a private employer. This court, citing earlier cases, acknowledged the legislature's reservoir of lawmaking authority to adjust remedial processes and substantive remedies to satisfy the constitutional command to provide remedy by due course of law for injury   . Smothers, 332 Or. at 119, 23 P.3d 333. However, in focusing on that authority, this court stated that any alteration may not substitute an emasculated version of the remedy that was available at common law. Id. at 119-20, 23 P.3d 333. Our assessment of the injury done [plaintiff] in his person is relatively simple in the context of this case. Plaintiff alleges, and defendants admit for purposes of this proceeding, that, due to the personal injury suffered here as a consequence of defendants' negligence, plaintiff has suffered economic damages in the sum of $11,073,506, for anticipated life and health care expenses, and $1,200,000 for lost future earning capacity, for total economic damages of $12,273,506. Plaintiff also alleges, and defendants admit, that plaintiff has suffered noneconomic damages in the sum of $5,000,000. There is no dispute that, when Oregon adopted its remedy guarantee, plaintiff would have been entitled to seek and, if successful, to recover both types of damages from the individual defendants. With the 1991 amendment to the OTCA, the legislature eliminated a plaintiff's right to seek a full recovery for torts committed by public officers, employees, or agents. That amendment left any injured person, in those circumstances, with a capped remedy of $100,000 in economic damages and $100,000 in noneconomic damages against the public body only. [17] The statute also eliminates entirely any claim against the individual tortfeasors by requiring substitution of those individual defendants by the public body as the sole defendant. The individual defendants attempt to justify the complete statutory elimination of their liability by contending that the damage awards against a public body that ORS 30.270(1) allows constitute an adequate remedy by due course of law. In so arguing, they rely on this court's opinion in Hale, however, as our discussion above indicates, Hale is distinguishable. Hale examined the adequacy of a statutorily capped monetary remedy in a claim against public bodies. Hale, 308 Or. at 511-12, 521-24, 783 P.2d 506. In that case, with respect to the municipal defendant that did not enjoy sovereign immunity, the court's analysis did not address the injured plaintiff's traditional right to seek full relief from an individual tortfeasor. Id. at 521-24, 783 P.2d 506. The statutory scheme at issue here, in contrast, eliminates any claim against an individual tortfeasor. Hale does not assist the defendants in this case. Neither does Greist support the individual defendants. As explained above, the statutory damage limitation at issue in Greist allowed recovery of 100 percent of any economic damages and up to $500,000 in noneconomic damages. Greist, 322 Or. at 291, 906 P.2d 789. Placing no limit on recovery of economic damages allowed plaintiffs to recover fully their out-of-pocket losses, including expenses for medical, burial, and memorial services. Id. The court also explained that the wrongful death claim, at issue in that case, came into existence with a limitation and that, historically, recovery for wrongful death had been low. Id. Considered in that context, the court concluded that the legislative choice did not violate Article I, section 10. Id. In contrast, the legislation under review here does not merely adjust the recovery for a legislatively created remedial scheme; instead, it eliminates a common-law remedy against an individual tortfeasor. We view plaintiff's economic damages of over $12 million as representative of the enormous cost of lifetime medical care currently associated with permanent and severe personal injuries caused by the medical negligence of a state officer, agent, or employee. Defendants do not argue that those damages do not constitute an injury within the meaning of the constitution. Nor does anything in the legislation suggest such a conclusion by the legislature. Yet, the legislature has completely eliminated an injured person's preexisting right to obtain a full recovery for those damages from the individual tortfeasors who negligently caused the injuries. As we have explained, the legislature is authorized under Article I, section 10, to vary or modify the nature, the form, or the amount of recovery for a common-law remedy. However, that authority is not unlimited. To be clear, we respect the legislature's goal in amending the OTCA in 1991-the legislature was entitled to conclude that the goal of encouraging public employment of qualified health care professionals by protecting them from the demands of litigation and the threat of personal liability is an important one. [18] However, there is simply nothing that we can discern from our state's history, or from the nature, the form, or the amount of recovery available for the preexisting common-law claim, that would permit this court to conclude that the limited remedy for permanent and severe injury caused by medical negligence that is now available under the OTCA meets the Article I, section 10, remedy requirement. In sum, we hold that (1) OHSU would have been entitled to sovereign immunity at common law and, therefore, plaintiff would have had no common-law claim against OHSU that is entitled to protection under Article I, section 10; (2) because OHSU is entitled to sovereign immunity, the legislature can limit damages recoverable against OHSU to any amount it chooses, unfettered by Article I, section 10's Remedy Clause; however, (3) the elimination of a cause of action against public employees or agents in ORS 30.265(1), as applied to plaintiff's claim against the individual defendants, violates the Remedy Clause of Article I, section 10, because the substituted remedy against the public body, as specified in ORS 30.270(1), is an emasculated version of the remedy that was available at common law. [19] The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. The judgment of the circuit court is reversed and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. BALMER, J., concurring. Plaintiff was injured by the medical negligence of employees of Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). Plaintiff suffered damages (which OHSU, for present purposes, does not dispute) of at least $11 million, primarily for the cost of his past and future medical care. Oregon's current statutes limit plaintiff's recovery to $100,000 for economic damages (medical costs, lost wages, and similar losses) and another $100,000 for noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering. I agree with the majority's analysis and with its conclusion that the statutes that lead to that result deprive plaintiff of a remedy that he had at common law without providing an adequate substitute remedy, in violation of the Remedy Clause of Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution. I write separately to make two points. First, the limit on the remedy available to plaintiff here should have been increased long ago by the legislature  and the legislature should take this opportunity to reconsider the appropriate tort claims act limits for medical malpractice claims against OHSU. Second, the majority correctly states that the Remedy Clause does not prevent the legislature from modifying the form or amount of recovery  or even from eliminating  common-law claims, as long as it provides an adequate substitute remedy. I would add that, under this court's cases, a legislatively imposed limit on the damages that an injured patient may recover against OHSU and its employees would not violate the Remedy Clause as long as that limit does not deprive the patient of a substantial remedy. Those cases also demonstrate that the majority's decision does not threaten existing statutes in which the legislature has altered or eliminated common-law causes of action, such as the workers' compensation system. I begin with a point that should be apparent to all the parties and amici in this case: The arbitrarily low cap on damages for medical malpractice claims against OHSU and its employees is a problem that has long called for a legislative solution. The present tort claims act imposes a cap of $100,000 for economic damages and another $100,000 for noneconomic damages for torts committed by public agencies and their employees without regard to the nature of the tort. ORS 30.270. Those limits may well be appropriate for most torts committed by public employees. Car accidents in which a public employee is at fault; the failure to clear ice from a public sidewalk leading to an injury  the damages from those kinds of injuries may occasionally exceed the cap, but ordinarily they will not. It is for that reason that drivers and homeowners often carry insurance of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident. But, as this case so tragically illustrates, the nature of medical malpractice claims is such that damages in the form of future medical expenses and lost wages often can be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. For that reason, doctors don't have malpractice insurance of $100,000 or $300,000; rather, virtually every doctor in Oregon has medical malpractice insurance coverage of at least $1 million, with many doctors maintaining coverage of $3 million or $5 million per occurrence. [1] The insurance obtained by individuals for claims arising from their driving and homeownership  and by doctors for malpractice claims  does not necessarily determine the limits of liability that the legislature should set for purposes of the Oregon Tort Claims Act, let alone the level that is required by the Remedy Clause. At the very least, however, the decisions of private individuals and institutions regarding their insurance coverage provide some indication of the kinds of claims those private actors ordinarily face and, indirectly, of what kind of remedy for those claims likely would be substantial or adequate for purposes of the Remedy Clause. In any event, the fact that virtually every Oregon doctor carries malpractice insurance that far exceeds the caps applicable to OHSU and its employees suggests that those limits need to be changed. In my view, the legislature should, at least for medical malpractice claims, increase the existing claims limit substantially and immediately and, perhaps, retroactively. My second point relates to the standards by which this court reviews legislative modifications of common-law causes of action to determine whether they are consistent with the Remedy Clause. This court's Remedy Clause cases allow the legislature to adjust Oregon law to changing circumstances by creating, eliminating, or altering causes of action or providing defenses or immunities to the cause of action; however, if those changes eliminate a common-law remedy that existed in 1857, the legislature must provide an adequate substitute remedy. See Smothers v. Gresham Transfer, Inc., 332 Or. 83, 124, 23 P.3d 333 (2001). The majority recognizes that flexibility: [T]the legislature is authorized, under Article I, section 10, to vary or modify the nature, the form or the amount of recovery for a common-law remedy, as long as an injured person has an adequate substitute remedy. 343 Or. at 609, 175 P.3d at 434; see also 343 Or. at 606, 175 P.3d at 432 (Remedy Clause does not eliminate the power of the legislature to vary and modify both the form and the measure of recovery for an injury, as long as it does not leave the injured party with an `emasculated' version of the remedy that was available at common-law.). The difficulty, of course, in this as in other Remedy Clause cases, is determining whether a substituted remedy is constitutionally adequate. This court has not articulated a precise test, and it probably is not possible to do so. As the majority notes, we have used different words to try to identify what kind of remedy is required. Many cases simply have held that the legislature may not leave a plaintiff without remedy, Mattson v. Astoria, 39 Or. 577, 579, 65 P. 1066 (1901), or with only an emasculated remedy. West v. Jaloff, 113 Or. 184, 195, 232 P. 642 (1925). In Hale v. Port of Portland, 308 Or. 508, 523, 783 P.2d 506 (1989), the court reviewed the earlier Remedy Clause decisions and stated that the Remedy Clause is not violated when the legislature alters (or even abolishes) a cause of action, so long as the injured party is not left entirely without a remedy. Under those cases, the remedy need not be precisely of the same type or extent; it is enough that the remedy is a substantial one. (Emphasis added.) In Hale, this court upheld a cap on damages that the legislature had enacted as part of an expansion of the class of plaintiffs who could sue a public body: A benefit has been conferred, but a counterbalancing burden has been imposed. This may work to the disadvantage of some, while it will work to the advantage of others. Id. Plaintiff argues that any statute that imposes a limit on the damages that a plaintiff could have recovered at common law violates the Remedy Clause. From plaintiff's perspective  which I respect, but disagree with  the Remedy Clause prevents the legislature from eliminating plaintiff's cause of action against the individual defendants in this case and substituting OHSU as the sole defendant, as long as there is any limit on OHSU's liability. Plaintiff asserts that even if the legislature set a limit of $1 million or $10 million on OHSU's liability, that limit would be unconstitutional as applied to any plaintiff whose damages exceeded whatever the limit happened to be. [2] Plaintiff takes that position because, at common law, plaintiff had a cause of action against the individual defendants for all his damages, without any limit whatsoever. No Oregon case supports plaintiff's position that any tort claims limit would be unconstitutional when applied to a plaintiff whose damages exceeded that limit. Hale is almost directly on point. There, this court upheld a tort claims damage limits of $100,000 on a claim against the City of Portland, even though (1) the plaintiff's alleged economic damages exceeded $600,000, and (2) at common law, the plaintiff would have had a claim against the city for an unlimited amount (because the claim was against the city acting in a proprietary capacity). This court rejected the plaintiff's argument that the $100,000 limit on damages that could be recovered against the city violated the Remedy Clause because the plaintiff's damages exceeded that amount. As this court concluded in upholding the cap, although a limit has been placed on the size of the award that may be recovered, all persons who had a remedy continue to have one. Hale, 308 Or. at 523, 783 P.2d 506. More relevant to this case, the court in Hale recognized that when the legislature modifies a common-law claim, that change may work to the disadvantage of some, while it will work to the advantage of others. Id. Plaintiff asserts that Hale is distinguishable because that case, unlike this one, did not involve a claim against individual defendants that the legislature had eliminated. Although Justice Linde relied upon that fact in his concurring opinion, 308 Or. at 527, 783 P.2d 506 (Linde, J., concurring), it played no role in the majority's analysis. Rather, the majority in Hale viewed the statutory scheme there as adjusting the liability of public defendants by making the city liable for torts committed in its governmental capacity that it would not have been liable for at common law. Similarly, in this case, the statutory scheme adjusted the liability of public defendants by eliminating the common-law claim against the individual defendants and making OHSU liable for their torts  liability from which it would have been immune at common law. [3] In both cases, those adjustments were accompanied by the imposition of a limit on the amount of damages that, without the statutory limit, could have been recovered at common law. Greist v. Phillips, 322 Or. 281, 906 P.2d 789 (1995), also rejected the argument that plaintiff makes here. In that wrongful death case, a jury had awarded the plaintiff noneconomic damages of $1.5 million, but the trial court had reduced the award to $500,000 pursuant to former ORS 18.560(1) renumbered as ORS 31.710 (2003). The plaintiff in Greist made the same argument that plaintiff makes here: that the cap wholly denies a remedy for legitimate losses that exceed $500,000.  Greist, 322 Or. at 290, 906 P.2d 789 (quoting the plaintiff's brief). This court, however, concluded that plaintiff's recovery of $500,000 in noneconomic damages, in addition to $100,000 in economic damages, was a substantial remedy, even though it was a fraction of the amount that the jury had awarded. The majority distinguishes Hale and Greist from this case on grounds that I find persuasive. However, nothing in the majority opinion undermines the holdings in those cases that the Remedy Clause does not prohibit the legislature from imposing caps on tort damages as long as those caps do not deprive a plaintiff of a substantial remedy. Hale and Greist both hold that the legislature may act with regard to classes of claims or plaintiffs and that a statutory limit on certain kinds of claims does not violate the Remedy Clause, even though it may limit the damages that can be recovered by a particular plaintiff for a particular claim. In my view, the problem with the statutory scheme at issue in this case is not the fact that OHSU's liability is capped, but rather that a cap of $100,000 for economic damages and $100,000 for noneconomic damages is not a substantial remedy for medical malpractice claims. To summarize, Article I, section 10, does not freeze in place common-law causes of action that existed when the drafters wrote the Oregon Constitution in 1857. Smothers, 332 Or. at 124, 23 P.3d 333. Rather, the legislature may modify those remedies by changing the nature of the plaintiff's claim, the available defenses, or the amount of damages that the plaintiff may recover, as long as the plaintiff retains a substantial remedy for injury done him in his person, property, or reputation. Here, the modification made by the legislature  the elimination of the claims against the individual defendants and the substitution of OHSU as the only defendant, with the caps on OHSU's liability described above  did not leave plaintiff with a substantial remedy for his malpractice claim. That understanding of the issue in this case also demonstrates that nothing in the majority's opinion undermines other statutes in which the legislature has adjusted common-law rights and liabilities. The most obvious example is the workers' compensation system. In Smothers, this court stated that the court's earlier decisions implicitly    recognized the legislature's constitutional authority to substitute workers' compensation for the common-law negligence cause of action for work-related injuries. 332 Or. at 125, 23 P.3d 333. The workers' compensation scheme provides an injured worker with compensation for work-related injuries without the necessity of proving the employer's negligence; however, the amounts that a particular injured worker may receive may well be less than he or she could recover in a successful negligence action against the employer. In a sense, an injured worker's damages are capped at the level of benefits that the worker receives under the workers' compensation program. However, because of the trade off of not having to prove the employer's negligence (and other procedural advantages) and because injured workers' benefits are related to the severity of the injury, the workers' compensation scheme provides workers generally with a substantial remedy for Remedy Clause purposes. In other statutes, the legislature has determined that important public policies will be advanced by encouraging certain activities and has modified common-law causes of action involving those who participate in such activities. Good Samaritan statutes limit the circumstances in which a person injured by another person who provides emergency medical assistance, transportation, or defibrillator treatment can recover damages. See ORS 30.800; ORS 30.807; ORS 30.802. Other statutes provide individuals with limited immunity for reporting child abuse, ORS 419B.025, and for disclosing information about a former employee to a new employer. ORS 30.178. In those and similar statutes, the legislature has modified the plaintiff's common-law cause of action by, for example, requiring the plaintiff to prove gross negligence rather than negligence, or by providing limited immunity to defendants for some kinds of conduct. The majority's decision, like this court's earlier Remedy Clause cases, allows the legislature to respond to what it perceives to be important public policy needs, as long as it does not eliminate a common-law cause of action without providing an adequate substitute remedy. KISTLER, J., joins in this concurring opinion.