However, he said, liability reform remains an important issue. Hopefully, Mr. Karr added, efforts will continue this year to resolve the crisis.

Carl Parks, senior vice president of federal government relations with the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, based in Des Plaines, Ill., added that the vote “demonstrates that moving liability reform legislation in the Senate remains an uphill battle.”

“PCI hopes that the Senate vote will not result in Congress losing its desire to apply sensible reforms to the full spectrum of American health care in order to ensure both the accessibility and quality of health care, health coverage and medical innovation,” Mr. Parks said.

S. 2061 was sidetracked when only 48 senators voted to invoke cloture, which would cease debate and begin a vote on the bill–12 votes short of the 60 needed.

The legislation would apply only to obstetrical and gynecological goods and services, which have faced particular problems with rising medical malpractice insurance premiums.

Under The Bill:

Non-economic damages in ob/gyn cases would be capped at $250,000.

Punitive damages would be capped at $250,000 or two times economic damages, whichever is greater.

Punitive damages could only be awarded if the plaintiff proves that the defendant acted with “malicious intent” to cause the injury or deliberately failed to take steps that could have avoided the injury.

A statute of limitations for filing ob/gyn malpractice claims would be established.

Courts could restrict the payment of contingency fees to plaintiffs lawyers.

Courts could reduce compensatory awards by any amounts received by claimants from collateral sources.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, February 27, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved. Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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