In 2005, Ohio’s Republican-dominated legislature enacted limits on the amount of damages its citizens can recover in civil lawsuits. Insurance companies had long lobbied for these changes and promised reductions in insurance premiums if this measure were passed, something that, of course, never happened after the changes became law.

          The law was designed to protect large companies from large verdicts and was premised on a belief that juries could not be trusted to accurately assess damages in civil cases. The legislature, however, left intact a jury’s responsibility to initially determine whether a person facing a capital murder charge will receive the death penalty – an irony that seems difficult to reconcile.

            These limits or caps came into play recently when a Lorain County jury awarded forty-four million dollars to the plaintiffs in Gibson Bakery vs. Oberlin College of which thirty-three million dollars represented punitive damages.  This case has gained national attention. After applying the caps set forth in the Ohio law, the judge reduced the verdict to twenty-five million

            What are these limits? When a jury deliberates, it is to determine economic losses (actual bills and projected monetary losses) and non-economic losses (pain and suffering, mental anguish, etc.). In general, Ohio law places no limit on economic losses, but does not allow non-economic losses to exceed $250,000 or three times economic losses, but capped at $350,000. As for punitive damages, the jury’s award cannot exceed two times the total economic and non-economic losses. The jury is not informed of these limits. After a verdict, the judge must make the reductions according to the law.  

            The attorneys at Miraldi & Barrett have always opposed any law that imposes caps on damages. From our experience, these reductions invariably lead to injustice. Jurors who have heard all of the evidence are better positioned to determine damages than legislators who arbitrarily set limits that bear no relation to the person’s injuries and damages.