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• Thurgood Marshall Law Library/University of Maryland School of Law

Summary

Medical malpractice liability is governed by state law, but Congress has the power, under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Art. I, § 8, cl. 3) to regulate it. On March 13, 2003, the House passed H.R. 5, 108th Congress, which would preempt state law with respect to certain aspects of medical malpractice lawsuits. H.R. 5 finds "that the health care liability system is a costly and ineffective mechanism for resolving claims of health care liability and compensating injured patients." It seeks to prevent the decreased availability of medical services, "reduce the incidence of `defensive medicine' and lower the cost of health care liability insurance, all of which contribute to the escalation of health care costs." Opponents of medical malpractice reforms have argued that "there is a very minimal relationship between health care costs and malpractice litigation," and that, "[a]s the Harvard Medical Practice Study reported in 1990, . . . about one in eight negligently injured patients file a malpractice claim. The study's authors concluded that `we do not now have a problem of too many claims; if anything, there are too few.'" This report does not address the question of the effects of medical malpractice litigation, or of medical malpractice liability reform, on the health care system or on the cost of liability insurance premiums. Rather, it discusses the reforms proposed by H.R. 5, as passed. H.R. 5, as passed, would, among other things, impose caps on noneconomic damages and punitive damages, permit defendants to be held liable for no more than their share of responsibility for a plaintiff's injuries, require that damage awards be reduced by amounts plaintiffs receive from collateral sources such as health insurance, limit lawyers' contingent fees, create a federal statute of limitations, and require that awards of future damages in some cases be paid periodically, rather than in a lump sum. This report explains each of these ideas and enumerates some of their pros and cons. An appendix to this report presents a chart of current state caps on punitive damages and noneconomic damages.

Related Legislation:
• H.R.5

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