$750,000 Stood After Virginia Cap Cut $2.75 Million Verdict to Brain-Injured Mother After Jaw Surgery
After trial: The trial court reduced the $2.75 million jury verdict to the $750,000 statutory cap for medical malpractice, and the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed on January 13, 1989, upholding the cap. The opinion does not state trial counsel or the trial year.
Won by Levy Konigsberg LLP.
Richie Lee Wilson, a 35-year-old licensed practical nurse and mother of three, was left with brain damage and left-sided paralysis after jaw reconstruction surgery at Medical Center Hospitals in May 1980. A Virginia jury found the hospital and the general surgeon negligent and awarded $2.75 million. The trial court cut the judgment to the $750,000 statutory cap for medical malpractice, and in January 1989 the Supreme Court of Virginia upheld the cap against constitutional challenge, so $750,000 stood.
What happened
On May 6, 1980, Richie Lee Wilson, a 35-year-old licensed practical nurse and mother of three, went to Medical Center Hospitals in Virginia for surgery to restore a deteriorating jaw bone. Dr. Clarence B. Trower Jr., a general surgeon, removed five-inch-long portions of two of her ribs, and an oral surgeon grafted the reshaped rib bone onto her jaw.
Ms. Wilson had been healthy before the operation. She did not come out of it that way. She was left with permanent brain damage that limited her memory and intelligence, and with paralysis on her left side. She used a wheelchair afterward and could no longer care for herself or for her children. Because of her condition, her affairs were handled by co-committees of her estate, Louise Etheridge and Larry Dodd, who brought the case on her behalf.
The suit named the hospital and Dr. Trower, whose estate was later substituted as a defendant. At trial, the jury found both defendants negligent and found that their negligence was a proximate cause of Ms. Wilson's injuries. It returned a verdict of $2.75 million against them.
The verdict did not become the judgment. Virginia's medical malpractice statute, Code 8.01-581.15, capped total recoverable damages in a malpractice action, and the trial court reduced the award to the $750,000 limit. The case then turned on whether that cap could lawfully be applied to a jury's finding.
The plaintiffs appealed, with Donald I. Marlin as lead counsel and Alan J. Konigsberg of the New York firm Levy, Phillips & Konigsberg on the brief, together with Stephen C. Swain and Frederick T. Stant Jr. of Clark & Stant. They argued that the cap violated the federal and Virginia constitutions. The Attorney General of Virginia and the Medical Society of Virginia filed briefs supporting the statute.
On January 13, 1989, the Supreme Court of Virginia affirmed. Justice Stephenson wrote for the court and rejected the challenges based on the right to a jury trial, due process and equal protection, among others. The court also decided a question of statutory interpretation, holding that the malpractice cap controls over the general damages provision in Code 8.01-38. Justice Russell dissented, reasoning that the cap violated the Virginia Constitution's ban on special laws. The court's ruling left the $750,000 judgment in place, and the opinion became a frequently cited authority on the constitutionality of malpractice damage caps.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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