Prudent limit on damages

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Gov. Mark Sanford went to Charleston Monday to sign South Carolina's new law aimed, as the governor said, at making this state more competitive and making health care more accessible.

The new law does a good job of balancing the rights of patients to seek just compensation when they have suffered because of a doctor's mistake, with the need doctors have to be able to practice medicine without fearing lawyers will use innocent mistakes to hit a jury jackpot. The state Senate and House of Representatives passed a bill that has appropriate safeguards for doctors and health-care institutions but also gives patients protections against doctors who were grossly negligent or reckless.

Key provisions of the bill: (1) limit awards for non-economic damages to $350,000 per defendant or $1.05 million for multiple defendants; (2) strongly encourages out-of-court settlements by penalizing the party that had rejected a settlement if the other side is awarded damages by a jury, (3) protects emergency room and trauma doctors in emergency situations unless the doctor can be proven grossly negligent, (4) protects obstetricians when they are providing emergency care to someone who is not their patient or who has not received prenatal care unless the doctor is grossly negligent and (5) sets new standards for expert witnesses.

Like a companion business tort reform bill signed into law in Greenville two weeks ago, the medical malpractice bill still protects the right of people to seek compensation for injuries caused by negligent, careless or sloppy work. But these two bills protect businesses and doctors from jury-shopping plaintiffs looking for easy money in lawsuits that ultimately drive up the cost of doing business, leave some state residents with diminished access to health care and threaten the jobs of many people in this state.

This medical malpractice bill only limits "pain and suffering" damages. Plaintiffs have no limits placed on economic damages — those real damages related to medical care, rehabilitation services, custodial care, loss of earnings and earning capacity, loss of employment and other monetary losses.

The medical malpractice and business tort reform bills are significant new laws that should bring some sobriety to a civil justice system that had lost self-control when it came to lawsuits.