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SC institutes cap on noneconomic malpractice damages
Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, April 12, 2005
South Carolina joined a number of other states in setting a cap on "pain and suffering" damages in medical malpractice lawsuits, a move that the state's governor said was "fundamentally about...lowering the cost of medicine," according to the Associated Press.
Gov. Mark Sanford signed a piece of legislation on April 4 that limits non-economic damages at $350,000, making South Carolina the 29th state to institute laws limiting non-economic awards, in the hopes of keeping malpractice premiums from skyrocketing at the rates they have been.
The new law does not cap economic damages, nor does it cap any situation in which the physician being sued is found to be grossly negligent in their duties. The law does provide protection from liability for emergency-room and trauma doctors in emergency cases.
Not everyone in South Carolina supports the move, with critics feeling that the law simply protects the interests of physician and insurance companies while ignoring the patients victimized by physician error. Some even doubt that the law will do anything to keep insurance companies from raising malpractice premiums.
"I'm sorry that the people of South Carolina have been so betrayed by the insurance industry, and I'm sorry for the doctors who've been victimized by the insurance industry," Ken Suggs, vice president of the American Trial Lawyers Association, told the Post and Courier newspaper of Charleston. "It won't do a thing for doctors."
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