then there are other judges that refuse to interfere with the belief that the court award will be lowered by appellate courts or in further settlement mediation.
However, I frequently saw cases where the jury awards were akin to winning the lottery not only for the injured party, but several family members also. I used to read the jury charges to verify that the statistical reports correctly allocated economic, non-economic, exemplary damages and interest and I'm sorry, but when I see an adult child awarded a million dollars for mental anguish when an injured parent also was awarded millions of dollars it doesn't seem reasonable. I think that most people will agree with that sentiment which is why the arbitrary caps receive support from the people.
I will also state that when Texas had a issue in medical professional liability insurance about 15 years ago it resulted in a crisis where doctors were avoiding the state because their premiums were too high and the state had a reputation of being bad for doctors. Even though I was opposed to the tort reforms that were adopted because I felt the limits were too low, the objective facts afterwards did show that there was an influx of doctors into the state. So the insurance industry statements that companies are driven out of business by such judgments does have some validity. Even if driving some bad actors out of business has positive public effects there will always be the unanswerable question of how many good actors decided to stay away?
Furthermore, what happens when a hospital is forced to shut down in a small town because of an excessive judgment? I live in a town where the hospital did shut down for 1.5 years (not related to any lawsuits)--there were certainly deaths that occurred because the patient had to be transported 30 miles away. There may have even been some deaths because both ambulances in town were making runs to the hospital out of town. The EMS service was forced to accelerate their purchase of two new ambulances at $160K each because of the wear and tear on the vehicles which is a cost to be paid by taxpayers over the next few years.
I also have an issue with how huge settlements affect public liability because of the burden it places on taxpayers. An example would be the $28M awarded to the Beatrice Six in Nebraska for wrongful imprisonment (see the Nebraska Group where I've posted a few articles over the past three years). While the group was wrongfully imprisoned and deserve to be compensated, where is the justice in the situation when it effectively handicaps the government for an entire county with budget cuts and terminated employees? What is the public interest of having a governmental entity that can't perform their mission?
I do believe in justice for those who are injured, but justice is a two-way street and it has to be fair for all parties in a civil lawsuit. If I was ever on a jury I would be more inclined to award a large amount against a corporation than a public entity, particularly if there is gross negligence or willful intent to not fix a product that is defective. However, neither plaintiff or defendant attorneys would allow me to be selected from a jury pool because I do have some idea about what an injury is actually worth and I do stand for justice. If you ever try a case in Texas you'll probably want to strike me from your list of prospective jurors because even though I might rule in the favor of your client I'm not interested in providing a windfall to either the plaintiffs or you as their attorney.
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