KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (Legal Newsline) - Tennessee’s high court ruled that state law caps noneconomic damages at $750,000 for all plaintiffs, following up on a 2020 decision that found the damages cap is constitutional.
Cynthia Yebuah sued her doctors and Radiology Alliance, P.C. after a surgeon discovered a foreign object in her abdomen while removing her gallbladder. The cylindrical object was a Gelport device another surgeon had mistakenly left behind after laparoscopic kidney removal eight years before.
Surgeons removed the object in November 2013, and Yebuah returned to work soon after. A year later she sued her doctors and the Center for Radiology for leaving the ring in, failing to detect it and failing to remove it once it had been discovered. She didn’t claim any permanent injury and sought only noneconomic damages for her pain and suffering. Her husband sought money to compensate for loss of consortium.
The other defendants settled or were dismissed, and in 2018 a jury awarded Yebuah $4 million -- $2 million for pain and suffering and $2 million for loss of enjoyment -- and her husband another $500,000 for loss of consortium.
The Center asked the judge to reduce the total judgment to the statutory cap of $750,000, which was granted. The then plaintiffs filed a motion to either find the cap unconstitutional or apply it separately to each person. The judge rejected the constitutional challenge but granted the motion to apply the cap separately, increasing the judgment back to $1.25 million, or $750,000 for Yebuah and $500,000 for her husband.
The Court of Appeals restored the plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge and upheld the larger judgment. However, in the meantime the Tennessee Supreme Court had found the cap on noneconomic was constitutional, dooming the plaintiffs’ challenge.
On further appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed both lower courts to rule that the damages cap is a total for every plaintiff combined. The law states “each injured plaintiff” can recover noneconomic damages “not to exceed $750,000 for all injuries and occurrences.” Later, it says noneconomic damages “shall not exceed in the aggregate a total of $750,000.”
In the June 2 opinion, Justice Roger Page wrote that courts must determine the intent of a statute, assigning meaning to each word. By using the term “in the aggregate,” the court ruled, Tennessee legislators meant to cap the total damages for noneconomic losses. Other states, including Michigan and Maryland, interpret similar statutes the same way.
The court also rejected arguments public policy favors applying the cap separately. The plaintiffs argued splitting the cap between spouses “has the potential to create marital discord.”
“However, a loss of consortium award presupposes the existence of an intact marital relationship,” the court concluded.
Justice Sharon Lee dissented, joined by Justice Cornelia Clark. In a brief dissent, the judge said the decision slashed the Yebuah’s award by 83 percent, representing an unconstitutional violation of their right to trial by jury. Citing her dissent in the 2020 decision upholding the cap, she described the law as an “arbitrary, one-size-fits-all statutory cap” that reduces the jury’s role to a “mere procedural formality.”