Senate OKs lawsuit damage caps

Thursday, March 11, 2004

The Senate yesterday approved a measure to cap awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, but doctors may have suffered a setback in their campaign to limit damage awards, lawmakers said.

The Senate measure doesn't limit awards in other types of lawsuits, as some lawmakers and businesses wanted. The House passed an amendment last year that would allow all lawsuit damages to be capped.

House Republicans may now be "reluctant to approve less than we did last year," said one House GOP aide. "But certainly, we'll look at it, and there will be some heat on us to do something for the docs. We'll have to see."

By a 30-20 vote, the Senate supported a constitutional amendment to cap awards for pain and suffering in malpractice suits.

The bill faced a procedural vote earlier. As the clock ticked past 2 a.m. yesterday, Senate Majority Whip Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, and Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre, ate their words and switched their votes. They had said they would only support caps on all lawsuits.

Senate Republicans said Piccola and Corman saved the plan when it appeared to be doomed.

The Senate vote "could have a positive impact for patients and doctors, and both will now lobby the House to approve the Senate measure," said Dr. Bret Delone, midstate coordinator for the Politically Active Physicians Association.

Doctors and business groups are seeking protection from damage awards. Physicians have said they are being driven out of the state by high malpractice insurance costs.

Accident victims and their advocates, including trial lawyers, have said such caps would hurt people severely injured through negligence.

To amend the state constitution requires the House and Senate to pass identical bills twice, then to win voter approval. Only then can the Legislature write a caps bill.

"We urge the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to consider this bill promptly, and let the public decide on curbing lawsuit abuse and protecting health care for all Pennsylvanians," said Roger F. Mecum, executive vice president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society.

Opponents decried the Senate vote.

"The problem of high malpractice insurance premiums is not going to go away with the passage of caps, as evidenced by the experience of other states with caps," said Paul R. Lyon, executive director of the Committee for Justice for All, a coalition funded by trial lawyers, labor unions and other groups.

"If legislators are serious about fixing this problem, they need to institute stringent regulation of the insurance industry and establish programs to eliminate the tens of thousands of needless deaths and injuries every year due to preventable medical errors."

Doctors could be at a political disadvantage, Corman and Delone said.

"Winning a referendum against the trial lawyers could be tough for the doctors. That was one reason we had such a broad coalition of doctors, hospitals, businesses and other groups, because referendums can be expensive," Corman said.

Medical groups typically spend a fraction of what lawyers spend on political causes, state campaign finance records show.

"From a logistical financial point of view, a referendum would have been easier to win with the broader alliance," Delone said.

But Delone said, "We think the public knows what's at stake."

Bowing to caucus:

The proposal to limit caps to medical malpractice suits, sponsored by Sen. Jim Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, had been defeated on an earlier procedural vote. Then Corman said he and Piccola agreed to "go back on our word, at the request of our colleagues."

In the week leading up to the vote, Piccola and Corman repeatedly vowed to vote against limiting caps to medical malpractice suits. They had sponsored a measure that would place caps on all lawsuits. But their plan was defeated 27-23.

Piccola was blunt in describing his vote change.

"It was what the Republican Senate caucus wanted us to do; and after they gave us their votes, we felt we ought to help them with ours," Piccola said. "Did we say something different before? Yes."

When Rhoades' proposal seemed doomed, Corman led Piccola, Sen. Mike Waugh, R-York, and Sen. Gibson Armstrong, R-Lancaster, to the back of the chamber.

Corman and his colleagues, after more than 10 minutes of conferring, strode to the front of the chamber. As each switched his vote from no to aye, their fellow Republicans cheered.

Both Corman and Piccola said they believed the Rhoades bill was not good public policy and, in Piccola's words, "probably won't pass the House."

Rank-and-file senators praised the efforts of Senate Majority Leader David J. "Chip" Brightbill, R-Lebanon, to sustain the measure.

"Chip kept it alive until the prodigal Piccola and Corman came home to us, and we won," one GOP senator said.

Brightbill said he voted for a medical malpractice cap because "it solves the problem in front us; it helps the doctors."

Part of big picture:

Lawmakers were fighting over a high-profile issue: President Bush traveled to Pennsylvania last year to tout the Corman-Piccola bill to limit damages in all suits. Bush tried to link it to his crusade for federal lawsuit caps.

About half the states impose caps on lawsuit damages, mostly confined to medical malpractice lawsuits.

The proponents for lawsuit caps faced tough opposition. Senate President Pro Tem Robert C. Jubelirer, R-Blair, who recruited most of the current Senate GOP members, voted against every cap proposal. He called arguments that caps helped ordinary people "silly" and "ridiculous."

Earlier yesterday, more than 600 people at a trial-lawyer-sponsored rally made the Capitol Rotunda ring with shouts of "No Caps! No Caps! No Caps!"

Participants, including trial lawyers, anti-tobacco groups and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, portrayed the push to limit damages as an effort by doctors and big business to increase profits.

They said caps would allow corporations and the medical industry to escape responsibility for mistakes that injure or kill people.

But business groups and doctors said they are victims of frivolous lawsuits and excessive jury awards that drive away physicians and jobs.

"We're disappointed the real tort-reform measure didn't move through," Gene Barr, spokesman for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry, said of the Senate vote.

"We understand the Senate wanted to let the hospitals and doctors carry this forward, but doctors and hospitals needed the business community for funding and support when it goes before the voters," he said. "Now, if they get it on the ballot, unfortunately, our stake has been removed."

PETER L. DeCOURSEY: 255-8115 or pdecoursey@patriot-news.com