The Ohio Supreme Court has determined that caps on damage settlements do not violate the state's Constitution, climaxing a 27-year effort by the state Legislature to write legislation imposing such limits that can pass legal muster.

Four other efforts by the state Legislature since 1975 to limit damage awards had been rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

Thursday's court decision affirms a state law passed in April 2005 capping the amount of noneconomic “pain and suffering” damages that can be awarded to personal injury plaintiffs at $250,000, or three times the amount of economic damages, whichever is greater, up to a combined limit of $350,000–with the exception for plaintiffs who suffer permanent or major injuries.

The bill also limited the amount of punitive damages that can be awarded in Ohio tort actions to no more than twice the amount of the plaintiff's compensatory damages from the same defendant.

The court acted by a 5-2 majority.

“In its continued pursuit of reform, the General Assembly has made progress in tailoring its legislation to address the constitutional defects identified by the various majorities of this court,” the court said.

The court found that the latest law governing damages was sufficiently “different from the previous enactments” so as to “warrant a fresh review of their individual merits,” the majority added.

Justice Paul Pfeifer dissented from the decision, contending that a judge's automatic reduction of jury-determined noneconomic damages to the law's caps denied plaintiffs their right to a trial by jury. He also contended that, according to the majority, nothing prevents the General Assembly from limiting noneconomic damages to $1.

“After today, what meaning is left in a litigant's constitutional right to have a jury determine damages?” he wrote.

Justice Terrence O'Donnell issued an opinion partially dissenting from the majority, also contending that the decision would hinder a plaintiff's right to have damages determined by a jury.

The case in question, Arbino vs. Johnson & Johnson, et al, was brought by Melisa Arbino of Cincinnati, who is suing Johnson & Johnson and its Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc. unit, claiming use of its Ortho-McNeil birth control patch caused her to suffer “blood clots and other serious medical side effects.”

The case was referred to the state's high court by Ohio U.S. District Court Judge David Katz after plaintiff's lawyers argued that caps contained in the 2005 law violated the Ohio Constitution.

His request for a ruling came before a determination of the case's merits and before any ruling as to damages owed the defendant, according to Janet Arbury, the attorney representing Ms. Arbino.

Mark Behrens, a lawyer with Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P., in Washington, D.C., said the decision reflected the more conservative makeup of the current Ohio Supreme Court and its willingness to “restrain its role as a super-legislative body.”

Shook, Hardy & Bacon submitted a friend of the court brief in the case on behalf of a number of business groups, including the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America and the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies.

The brief argued, “The vast majority of state law has been, and should continue to be, decided by states. But state legislatures also have an important, overlapping role to play in the development of tort law.”

The brief added, “Decisions from the Supreme Court of Ohio show that, historically, this court recognized and respected the prerogative of the General Assembly to develop rules governing conduct, property and other key policy issues for the state.”

Special Reports /

Ohio Supreme Court Okays Damage Caps

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