| Venue: | WI SC |
| Facts: | Ferdon gets injured while being born. This was malpractice, and left him facing serious future medical expenses. WI has a statutory cap on noneconomic damages for medical malpractice. |
| Posture: | Jury trial awards $700K in noneconomic damages and $403K for future medical expenses. The Fund moves to have the noneconomic damages award reduced to the statutory cap. Ferdon chalenges the validity of the statute on equal protection grounds. |
| Issue: | Does the cap violate the WI Constitution's equal protection guarantee (Art I § 1)? |
| Holding: | Yes. The statute is unconstitutional. |
| Rule: | Rational basis "with bite:" the cap is arbitrary and unreasonable. |
| Reasoning: | A bit tortured.
Courts have the power and the duty to strike down acts that violate the constitution. For rational basis to have any meaning, it has to imply a meaningful level of scrutiny not only of the purpose, but also of the relationship between the legislation and its purpose. This cap disproportionately affects young people, because they'll be alive longer, and therefore they'll get fewer dollars per year. It also affects large families disproportionately, but on a per-capita basis, rather than on a time basis. Limiting a patient's recovery on the basis of youth or number of family members has nothing to do with the objective of the law. $350K is arbitrary-- it's not going to keep insurance premiums low or stop defensive medicine. |
| Dicta: | Dissent: we're not a su[er legislature. Tucking this under the WI constitution is a sneaky tactic to avoid SCOTUS review or scholarly attention while the court is sneaking in a new standard of scrutiny. There obviously was a rational basis for the legislation. |