Last week, members of the Georgia General Assembly came perilously close to committing the most serious act of legislative malpractice seen in the Capitol in years. And that deed may have been only delayed, not averted.

For years, a pitched battle has been fought out in the Legislature between doctors and lawyers over changes in malpractice law. And although the issue does not cleave strictly along partisan lines — there are Democrats who take the medical industry's side, and Republicans who take the attorney's side — the issue has been turned into a crusade at the national level by the Republican Party.

The gist of the medical industry's complaint is that soaring malpractice awards have driven insurance rates so high that doctors and hospitals are being forced out of business.

While malpractice insurance costs have indeed soared, there's no evidence for the rest of that case — no evidence of a dramatic climb in awards, no evidence that such awards are responsible for the rise in insurance rates, no evidence that the rise in insurance has driven substantial numbers of doctors out of business.

But driven largely by anecdote, that storyline has nonetheless become an article of faith for some people. And with Republicans taking control of state government, passage of a strong "tort reform" bill was assured.

However, even those who back tort reform should be taken aback by two provisions of Senate Bill 3.

The bill limits noneconomic damages to $350,000, even in cases of the grossest and most serious misconduct, such as a surgeon who operates under the influence of drugs or alcohol and cripples or even kills a patient. And for patients who enter the medical system through the emergency room, the bill sets such a high standard for malpractice that it becomes all but impossible to prove.

Last week, the House passed that version of the bill, and minutes later the Senate came within one vote of sending the House version to Gov. Sonny Perdue before calmer heads slowed the process down.

Legislators ought to take a breath and think about what they're about to do. There's a lot more to this issue than winning a political fight or paying off political supporters. It goes to fundamental issues of justice, of how much value we place in human life, and how much faith our elected leaders have in the people of this state.

There's no question that the civil justice system could use some changes. There should be economic penalties for lawyers who file frivolous cases, and a process for winnowing such cases out of the system early. Repeat filers of frivolous cases should be barred from the business. The language in SB 3 tightening the qualifications for expert witnesses is probably needed. There should be limits on how much winning lawyers can be paid, to discourage the attitude that filing cases is like buying a lottery ticket.

However, the $350,000 cap even in the most egregious cases does nothing to discourage frivolous cases, does nothing to penalize unethical lawyers, does nothing to discipline incompetent doctors and does nothing to open up the rate-setting process in the insurance industry.

Instead, it tries to "fix" the problem by penalizing the one person in the whole affair who is absolutely innocent and who has suffered grievous harm at the hands of others — the injured patient. The cap comes into effect only with the worst cases of medical malpractice, the cases of negligence or misconduct that have been proved in a court of law and that are deemed so serious by a citizens' jury that a large award is justified.

In effect, the bill takes victims and makes them victims once again. It also represents an astonishing presumption of power by legislators. By setting a cap, they are, in effect, substituting their own judgment for that of a jury of good Georgia residents who have spent days listening to the facts of a case.

And by the way, the judgment of those jurors will not have been tainted by campaign contributions from the parties in the case. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.