What are Tort Reforms?

Tort reforms are ideas mainly propagated by insurance companies and large firms aimed at changing the civil justice system with respect to compensation for damages. The reforms aim at reducing the numbers of litigations and amount of damages given to the plaintiff. According to the proponents of these reforms, the basis is that the civil justice system is generally corrupt. In addition, they also claim that failure to cap the amount of damages tends to have serious economic implications. As such, tort reforms aim at reducing both economic and non-economic damages on the plaintiff. Further, this reduces the payout amounts by the insurance companies. 

Various states in the United States have enacted statutes with respect to tort reforms. An example is North Carolina which enacted the N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-21.19 in 2011 whose provision is that the upper limit of noneconomic damages should be five hundred thousand dollars. The exception in this statute is when the plaintiff is disfigured or the defendant is deemed reckless. In addition, the punitive damages in this state have been capped to a compensatory amount of $250,000 or amount not exceeding three times the damages whichever is greater. Tort reforms have had both positive and negative effects. The initial motivation of these reforms was that both the jury and the civil justice system gave outrageous compensation amounts. This is thought to have been driven by passion or prejudice especially on the jury’s side in making its determination. Therefore, capping protects the defendant from being awarded the ridiculous compensatory amounts. However, the reforms are selfish especially looking it from the insurance companies’ prism. The companies and other large firms aim at reducing the amounts of compensation given in the event of medical malpractice. In addition, the reforms tend to encourage medical malpractice. This is because negligent health workers are not penalized enough for their wrongdoing. Very few doctors are punished for malpractice. Moreover, tort reforms deny plaintiffs full recovery in terms of compensation. This is because of the capping. In so doing, the negligent party also circumvents justice and escape part of his/her liability. In conclusion, it is evident that tort reforms tend to subvert justice. They deny justice to the plaintiff by making the defendant escape part of his/her liability. In so doing, they encourage medical malpractice. 

Reference 

Yu, H., Greenberg, M., & Haviland, A. (2017). The Impact of State Medical Malpractice Reform on Individual‐Level Health Care Expenditures. Health Services Research , 2018–2037.