Opinion ID: 2632709
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: open courts clause

Text: ¶ 10 This court has held, since our decision in Berry ex rel. Berry v. Beech Aircraft Corp., 717 P.2d 670 (Utah 1985), that citizens of Utah have a right to a remedy for an injury. Article I, section 11 of the Utah Constitution provides: All courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done to him in his person, property or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, which shall be administered without denial or unnecessary delay. Utah Const. art. I, § 11. As part of our Berry jurisprudence, we have fashioned a test by which we can discern whether the legislature had sufficient reason to diminish or eliminate a previously existing right to recover for an injury. Despite articulate and passionate arguments to the contrary, we find no open courts violation in the cap on quality of life damages imposed by Utah Code section 78-14-7.1 as applied to Athan's damages. Athan's cause has been allowed before and ruled upon by the courts, and his remedy has been diminished, but not eliminated. The protections of the open courts provision have not been offended. ¶ 11 Our past jurisprudence has clearly and firmly established the following test for violations of the Open Courts Clause: [S]ection 11 is satisfied if the law provides an injured person an effective and reasonable alternative remedy by due course of law for vindication of his constitutional interest. The benefit provided by the substitute must be substantially equal in value or other benefit to the remedy abrogated.... ... [I]f there is no substitute or alternative remedy provided, abrogation of the remedy ... may be justified only if there is a clear social or economic evil to be eliminated and the elimination of an existing legal remedy is not an arbitrary or unreasonable means for achieving the objective. Berry, 717 P.2d at 680. The Attorney General invites us to disavow our Berry line of cases, and to recognize that by adopting the Berry approach we have assumed powers and duties not properly held by the court, but reserved for the legislature. This we decline to do. However, we recognize an obligation of deference to legislative judgments in a Berry review, and to the extent this differs from our prior application of Berry, those prior applications are disavowed. Accordingly, we now address the question at hand  whether the cap on quality of life damages violates the Open Courts Clause.
¶ 12 Proceeding to our application of the Berry test, it is self-evident that the cap on quality of life damages, which does nothing more than reduce Athan's recovery, does not provide a substitute remedy substantially equal to that abrogated. Accordingly, we must consider the second portion of the Berry test as it pertains to the damage cap  whether the damage cap represents a reasonable, nonarbitrary method of reducing increasing health care costs and other dangers that the legislature views as clear social or economic evils.
¶ 13 Recovery of quality of life damages in Athan's case is limited to $250,000 by Utah Code section 78-14-7.1(1)(a). Utah Code Ann. § 78-14-7.1(1)(a) (2002). The legislature's stated purpose in enacting the cap is as follows: The legislature finds and declares that the number of suits and claims for damages and the amount of judgments and settlements arising from health care has increased greatly in recent years. Because of these increases the insurance industry has substantially increased the cost of medical malpractice insurance. The effect of increased insurance premiums and increased claims is increased health care cost, both through the health care providers passing the cost of premiums to the patient and through the provider's practicing defensive medicine because he views a patient as a potential adversary in a lawsuit. Further, certain health care providers are discouraged from continuing to provide services because of the high cost and possible unavailability of malpractice insurance. In view of these recent trends and with the intention of alleviating the adverse effects which these trends are producing in the public's health care system, it is necessary to protect the public interest by enacting measures designed to encourage private insurance companies to continue to provide health-related malpractice insurance.... Id. § 78-14-2 (2002). Although the empirical truth of these findings is a matter of some dispute, we will not undertake the same investigation as the legislature, reviewing its data-gathering methods and conclusions to determine whether the stated legislative findings are perfectly correct. A court is ill-suited to undertake investigation of such a nature. Our inquiry under the clear social or economic evil portion of the Berry test is more limited. ¶ 14 Both parties have cited various studies and articles, that ostensibly support their position that there is or is not a crisis in the health care industry caused in part by increased malpractice insurance premiums stemming from the possibility of unlimited awards for quality of life damages. Judd would have the court determine, based on this information, that the crisis does not actually exist, thereby rendering the cap unconstitutional under the Berry test. Although Judd's arguments are well taken, and the court may remain unconvinced of the wisdom of limiting quality of life damages for severely injured victims like Athan, our power does not extend so far as to permit imposition of our views on such policy disputes. [1] ¶ 15 Our job as this state's court of last resort is to determine whether the legislature overstepped the bounds of its constitutional authority in enacting the cap on quality of life damages, not whether it made wise policy in doing so. Although there are indications that overall health care costs may only be minimally affected by large damage awards, there is also data that indicates otherwise. See, e.g., Lee v. Gaufin, 867 P.2d 572, 585-89 (Utah 1993) (noting pricing and investment decisions by insurers, inflation, etc., as factors contributing to increased health care costs). But see Office of Tech. Assessment OTA-BP-H-1 19, Impact of Legal Reforms on Medical Malpractice Costs 64 (1993) [hereinafter Impact of Legal Reforms ] (recognizing that caps on damage awards were the only type of State tort reform that consistently showed significant results in reducing the malpractice cost indicators). When an issue is fairly debatable, we cannot say that the legislature overstepped its constitutional bounds when it determined that there was a crisis needing a remedy. [2] Accordingly, we next consider whether the elimination of Athan's right to collect unlimited quality of life damages is a reasonable, nonarbitrary method for achieving the legislature's stated purpose of controlling medical malpractice premiums and health care costs.
¶ 16 We cannot conclude that the cap on quality of life damages is arbitrary or unreasonable. The legislature's determination that it needed to respond to the perceived medical malpractice crisis was logically followed by action designed to control costs. Although malpractice insurance rates may not be entirely controlled by such matters, they are undoubtedly subject to some measure of fluctuation based on paid claims. Impact of Legal Reforms, supra, at 73 (noting that caps on damages ... lead to lower insurance premiums). Thus, one nonarbitrary manner of controlling such costs is to limit amounts paid out. Intuitively, the greater the amount paid on claims, the greater the increase in premiums. Limiting recovery of quality of life damages to a certain amount gives insurers some idea of their potential liability. Id. at 64 (Minimizing these large awards may allow insurers to better match premiums to risk.). While we recognize that such a cap heavily punishes those most severely injured, it is not unconstitutionally arbitrary merely because it does so. Rather, it is targeted to control costs in one area where costs might be controllable. ¶ 17 Despite this court's concerns about the wisdom of depriving a few badly injured plaintiffs of full recovery, the cap is also constitutionally reasonable. Rather than cap all damages, like the cap struck down in Condemarin v. University Hospital, 775 P.2d 348 (Utah 1989), the limitation on recoverable damages in this case is narrowly tailored, by limiting quality life damages alone. While Judd notes that Utah has not seen large damage awards in significant numbers, this position ignores at least one important factor. Although quality of life damages are very real, they are also less susceptible to quantification than purely economic damages. As amici point out, [t]he estimated value of future costs forms the basis of the [insurance] rate-setting process. The difficulty of predicting quality of life damages must be considered by insurers when setting rates and planning reserves. At least in some measure, then, predicting and controlling future costs can result in lower insurance rates. Taken as one of a number of measures enacted to help control health care costs, the cap on quality of life damages is thus a reasonable approach. ¶ 18 Having determined that the damage cap is designed to eliminate a social or economic evil, and that it is a reasonable, nonarbitrary means for doing so, we conclude that Utah Code section 78-14-7.1 does not violate article I, section 11 of the Utah Constitution.