Opinion ID: 3134286
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Ill 179 (1952), as the majority believes. In all three cases the

Text: court found special legislation violations. The statutes at issue in those cases, however, were much different from the measure involved here. The statute challenged in Wright imposed a limit of $500,000 on the total amount of damages, both economic and noneconomic, that could be recovered by a plaintiff in a medical malpractice action. The court found the statute to be a violation of the special legislation prohibition, concluding that medical malpractice plaintiffs had been arbitrarily selected to bear the burden of being limited in the total amount of compensation they were allowed to receive for their injuries. Both these concerns are alleviated in the provision at issue here, which is broader in scope but narrower in effect: the statute applies to all actions for personal injury, but it limits only a plaintiff's recovery of noneconomic losses and does not impose any cap on the recovery of economic losses. Moreover, in Anderson v. Wagner, 79 Ill. 2d 295, 304-05 (1979), this court counseled that Wright should not be read too broadly, noting that the statute in Wright could have prevented the full recovery of medical expenses. Anderson rejected constitutional challenges, including one of special legislation, to a statute of limitations for medical malpractice actions. Grace and Grasse are also distinguishable. The legislation challenged in Grace limited an injured plaintiff's ability to recover compensation for injuries incurred in traffic accidents, depending on whether the other party was using the vehicle for personal or commercial purposes. In Grasse a provision of the Worker's Compensation Act would have transferred an injured employee's action against a third-party tortfeasor to the plaintiff's employer if the third party's employee was also covered by the Act. In neither case was the court able to discern a rational basis for the classifications drawn by the legislature. I believe that the opposite conclusion is required here. In contrast to the measures at issue in Wright, Grace, and Grasse, the limit on the recovery of noneconomic losses bears a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. Here, the legislature could find that a $500,000 limitation on noneconomic damages would reduce the costs to society of allowing compensation for damages that, by their nature, are subjective and difficult to measure. For these reasons, I would join the group of jurisdictions that have upheld, against corresponding challenges on equal protection grounds, similar limits on the recovery of damages in tort actions. See, e.g., Davis v. Omitowoju, 883 F.2d 1155 (3d Cir. 1989) (applying Virgin Islands law; $250,000 limit on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice actions); Boyd v. Bulala, 877 F.2d 1191 (4th Cir. 1989) (applying Virginia law; $750,000 limit on damages in medical malpractice actions); Fein v. Permanente Medical Group, 38 Cal. 3d 137, 695 P.2d 665, 211 Cal. Rptr. 368 (1985); Scholz v. Metropolitan Pathologists, P.C., 851 P.2d 901 (Colo. 1993) ($250,000 limit on noneconomic damages and $1,000,000 on total damages in medical malpractice actions); Johnson v. St. Vincent Hospital, Inc., 273 Ind. 374, 404 N.E.2d 585 (1980) ($500,000 limit on damages in medical malpractice actions); Murphy v. Edmonds, 325 Md. 342, 601 A.2d 102 (1992) ($350,000 limit on noneconomic damages in personal injury actions); Etheridge v. Medical Center Hospitals, 237 Va. 87, 376 S.E.2d 525 (1989) ($750,000 limit on damages in medical malpractice actions); Robinson v. Charleston Area Medical Center, 186 W. Va. 720, 414 S.E.2d 877 (1991) ($1,000,000 limit on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice actions). Perhaps uncertain of its own conclusion, the majority opinion goes on to consider an alternative argument against the limit on noneconomic damages, hoping to persuade the reader by prolixity, if not by force of reasoning. Here, the majority finds that the limit on the recovery of noneconomic damages functions as a legislatively imposed remittitur and for that reason violates the separation of powers doctrine. The majority's discussion of this additional argument is entirely unnecessary, given the majority's prior holding that the same measure is invalid special legislation. On the merits, I disagree with the majority's conclusion that the cap on noneconomic damages improperly intrudes on the judicial power of remittitur. The challenged provision does not represent a finding about the evidence of any particular case, and it does not detract from the power of a court to reduce an award of damages in appropriate circumstances. Remittitur pertains to judges and juries, not the legislature; by characterizing the cap on damages as a remittitur, the majority is simply erecting and demolishing a strawman. The majority's broad holding on this question means, in essence, that the legislature may never impose a limit on damages, at least in common law actions. Given the implications of this holding and the absence of any need to discuss the issue, I would not join this part of the majority opinion even if I agreed with the court that the caps provision was invalid special legislation.