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14 Elder L.J. 331 (2006)
Neglecting the Neglected: The Impact of Noneconomic Damage Caps on Meritorious Nursing Home Lawsuits

handle is hein.journals/elder14 and id is 335 raw text is: NEGLECTING THE NEGLECTED: THE IMPACT OF NONECONOMIC DAMAGE CAPS ON MERITORIOUS NURSING HOME LAWSUITS Michael L. Rustad Meritorious nursing home lawsuits serve as valuable tools for policing a nursing home industry rife with instances of negligence, malpractice, neglect, and abuse. Recent proposals advocate a national cap of $250,000 on all noneconomic damages awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits. Many states have already adopted similar caps. In this empirical study of three hot-spot jurisdictions (California, Texas, and Florida), Professor Rustad shows the disparate effect of noneconomic damage caps on the elderly residents of nursing homes due to the general lack of meaningful economic damages among typical nursing home claimants. Noneconomic damage caps effectively doom many elder abuse and mistreatment claims by removing incentives for attorneys to accept these meritorious lawsuits. Professor Michael L. Rustad, Ph.D., J.D., LL.M., is the Co-Director of the Intellectual Property Law Concentration at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachu- setts. Thanks to Thomas H. Koenig of Northeastern University who helped me with con- structing the charts in this article. I am grateful to Suffolk University Law students David Coughlin, Shannon Downey, Kara Fratto, and Conway Kennedy for their able research assistance. I would also like to thank Diane D'Angelo, a Suffolk University Law School reference librarian, for assisting me in locating verdicts and other materi- als. Thanks also to Chryss J. Knowles for editorial assistance. I would also like to thank Eugene Garmize, Alex Chase, and The Elder Law Journal staff for editorial assis- tance.