The Daily Journal quotes Professor Nora Engstrom on legal challenges to tort caps for medical malpractice cases.

Just weeks after a harsh election defeat in their fight to increase medical malpractice awards, plaintiffs' attorneys have turned their focus back to the courts.

Consumer Attorneys of California is preparing to join campaign ally Consumer Watchdog in calling upon the state Supreme Court to overturn California's cap on noneconomic damages in medical suits. The tort lobby is fresh off a failed $10 million campaign to adjust after 39 years the $250,000 cap for inflation to $1.1 million. Critics say the move is unlikely to sway the high court, however, and say consumer attorneys are trying to save face after their election loss.

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Still, Nora Engstrom, a Stanford Law School professor with expertise in medical malpractice, said nationally the wind is at the backs of challenges to tort caps.

“A number of other states have invalidated damage caps, reasoning, to quote a 2012 opinion of the Missouri Supreme Court, that the 'individual right to trial by jury cannot 'remain inviolate' when an injured party is deprived of the jury's constitutionally assigned role of determining damages,'” Engstrom said, citing a previous blog post she authored on the subject.

How that might impact the odds before the California Supreme Court, Engstrom wouldn't say.