Opinion ID: 2557538
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Does the LGTCA Damages Cap Vitiate Effectively a Substantive Right?

Text: Having concluded that the Legislature may limit retrospectively the amount of damages to some extent and under certain circumstances, I now ask (rhetorically) whether the LGTCA damages cap limits recovery effectively in such a way as to preclude any opportunity to bring suit.... Allen, 193 Md. at 363-64, 66 A.2d at 797. By enacting the $200,000/$500,000 LGTCA damages limit, I conclude that the Legislature did not so transform plaintiffs' substantive rights. Prior to the LGTCA, local governments (but not their officers or employees) enjoyed immunity against most non-constitutional tort claims. See Housing Auth. v. Bennett, 359 Md. 356, 359-60, 754 A.2d 367, 368-69 (2000). Through the LGTCA, the Legislature altered the common law, giving plaintiffs limited access to the often sizable assets of local government, which must satisfy the awards returned by juries. Ashton, 339 Md. at 107-08, 660 A.2d at 465-66 (stating that the Legislature, through the LGTCA, provided a remedy for those injured by local government officers.. ., while ensuring that the financial burden ... is carried by the [ultimately responsible] local government). In the process, it encouraged coincidentally local governments to better train their officers and employees. To mitigate the budgetary impact of this statutory sea change, the Legislature also limited the amount that plaintiffs could recover. See Murphy v. Edmonds, 325 Md. at 370, 601 A.2d at 115-16 (holding that the Legislature did not act arbitrarily in enacting a $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages in personal injury actions, as it possessed several studies which concluded that $250,000 would cover most noneconomic damage claims); Gooslin v. State, 132 Md.App. 290, 296, 752 A.2d 642, 645 (2000), cert. denied, 359 Md. 334, 753 A.2d 1031 (2000) (finding constitutional the Maryland Tort Claims Act, Maryland Code (1984, 2009 Repl. Vol) State Government Article, §§ 12-101 et. seq., because the $50,000 waiver represented the level at which the Legislature chose to waive governmental immunity). The $200,000/$500,000 damages cap was a reasonable, rational, and constitutional balancing. Indeed, it may well have been a necessary prerequisite to the passage of the LGTCA.