Professor Nora Engstrom weighs in on a case that could remove a cap on medial malpractice settlements in California for The Daily Journal. 

Hoping for a sympathetic ear from a younger, and likely more left-leaning, state Supreme Court, members of the trial bar held a conclave in Los Angeles on Tuesday to plot another constitutional challenge to California's 40-year-old cap on payouts in medical malpractice lawsuits.

Trial lawyers and consumer rights activists have tried several times – legislatively and through the courts and the voters – to reverse the $250,000 limit on pain and suffering damages that passed as part of Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975, or MICRA. Their most recent effort, a ballot initiative in November, failed spectacularly. Despite those setbacks, the lawyers said they left Tuesday's meeting optimistic their new strategy would get a sympathetic hearing at the Supreme Court.

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Stanford Law School Professor Nora Engstrom, another critic of the cap, said the court had never considered that argument. Lower courts have rejected it, but “a strong claim can be made” that the state Supreme Court should weigh in, she said.