Davis v. Omitowoju
| Decision Date | 16 August 1989 |
| Docket Number | 88-3802,Nos. 88-3754,s. 88-3754 |
| Parties | Theresa DAVIS, Appellee, v. Dr. Akin OMITOWOJU, Appellant. Theresa DAVIS, Appellant, v. Dr. Akin OMITOWOJU, Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
R. Eric Moore (argued), Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. V.I. for Dr. Akin Omitowoju, appellant/cross-appellee.
George Marshall Miller (argued), St. Thomas, U.S. V.I. for Theresa Davis, appellee/cross-appellant.
Before HUTCHINSON, COWEN, and GARTH, Circuit Judges.
This appeal and cross appeal present us with a relatively new issue involving the applicability of the Seventh Amendment to a medical malpractice liability cap.
The plaintiff, Theresa Davis, ("Davis") obtained a jury verdict in her favor and against Doctor Akin Omitowoju ("Doctor") in the sum of $640,000. The Virgin Islands legislature in 1975 capped medical malpractice verdicts at $250,000 for non-economic damages. 27 V.I.C. Sec. 166b (1975). 1 Accordingly, Judge Christian, on June 14, 1988, reduced the verdict in Davis' favor to $250,000 for her non-economic damages and $153,294.92 for her economic damages (medical expenses, loss of wages, etc.) to a judgment totalling $403,294.92.
The Doctor appeals the judgment on a number of grounds at 88-3754. Davis cross-appeals at 88-3802 seeking the full benefit of the jury verdict and charging that the cap legislation, 27 V.I.C. Sec. 166b, will not withstand constitutional scrutiny particularly with respect to the Seventh Amendment.
Because of the importance of the Seventh Amendment issue and the dearth of authority addressing that issue, we will analyze that question first, and in so doing will affirm (albeit based on a different analysis) the district court's order which rejected Davis' Seventh Amendment challenge to the legislation. We will then discuss the other issues raised on appeal by the Doctor, and while we agree with the district court's decisions in those respects as well, we will nevertheless vacate the judgment and remand for correction of a technical error in the calculation of Davis' damages.
Davis injured her knee when she slipped and fell at her place of employment. She was treated by Dr. Omitowoju. The Doctor suggested to Davis that arthroscopic surgery would help her. Davis testified that the Doctor told her that he would not cut open her knee, but would only perform arthroscopy, a procedure that involves a small puncture of the knee. (A. 212).
At 10 p.m. on the night before the operation, while Davis lay in bed in the hospital, a nurse brought Davis a consent form for her to sign. The Doctor was not present and the nurse did not explain the form to Davis. The description of the procedure was handwritten and largely illegible. (A. 585). Davis, who has a seventh grade education, testified that she recognized the word "arthroscopy" and signed the permit.
As it turned out the handwriting on the form stated "Arthroscopy and excision of mass right knee and possible arthrotomy." 2 The form itself stated "Type of Surgery or treatment to be filled in by Physician in Terms Understandable by Patient." In fact the operation consisted of arthroscopy, and an arthrotomy during which the Doctor removed Davis' medial meniscus (knee cartilage) shaved articular cartilage from the bones of her knee, and also drilled into her knee. (A. 266-67).
Davis was dissatisfied with the results of her operation. She was subsequently treated and operated upon a number of times by a number of different doctors. On March 11, 1986 Davis filed a complaint with the Virgin Islands Malpractice Review Committee, as required by the Virgin Islands Malpractice Act, 27 V.I.C. Sec. 166i(b). The Committee found that no malpractice had occurred. Davis then filed suit in the district court. A trial commenced on May 18, 1988 and on May 20, 1988 the jury rendered a verdict in the amount of $650,000 in favor of Davis.
After the jury's verdict the district court requested that both sides submit briefs in order to conform the verdict to 27 V.I.C. Sec. 166b (1975) which reads as follows:
The total amount recoverable for any injury of a patient may not exceed two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ($250,000) plus actual expenses up to the time of trial not paid or payable or reimbursed from any other source for reasonable and necessary medical care, custodian care and/or rehabilitation services, and estimated future expenses not reimbursable or payable from any other source for care and/or rehabilitation services for each anticipated year of need; and lost earnings. The recovery in an action for wrongful death of a patient shall be as provided in 5 Virgin Islands Code, Section 76.
On June 3, 1988, Davis submitted a motion seeking to have the district court declare the limitation on the jury's damage award unconstitutional. Thereafter, the district court issued an opinion which concluded that the damage award should be reduced to $403,294.92. Davis then sought reconsideration, requesting the court to address her constitutional arguments. The district court denied the motion for reconsideration stating rather cryptically:
the Court having considered the motion of plaintiff to reconsider its Order entered June 14, 1988, and the Court bearing in mind that it was within the competence of the Legislature of the Virgin Islands in waiving the immunity from tort actions granted its employees by the Revised Organic Act, to do so on specific terms and conditions,
It is ORDERED that the motion of plaintiff for reconsideration be, and the same is, hereby DENIED.
(A. 600). 3
Concluding that Davis' constitutional claims are properly before us on appeal, we turn first to them. 4
In her cross-appeal, Davis raises three constitutional objections to the reduction of the jury verdict. She claims that the court's order violates due process, equal protection, and her right to a trial by jury under the Seventh Amendment.
We find no merit in Davis' first two claims. As the Fourth Circuit stated in disposing of both the due process and equal protection claims advanced in Boyd v. Bulala, 877 F.2d 1191 (4th Cir.1989), "a limitation on a common law measure of recovery does not violate a fundamental right or create a suspect classification." Davis did not assert any fundamental right to an uncapped jury verdict, nor could she. Nor has Davis attempted to, nor could she, style herself and all malpractice claimants as a suspect class. Any claim that she asserts must therefore be reviewed under the rational basis test. Id. at 1196.
Clearly the Virgin Island's decision to curb, through legislation, the high costs of malpractice insurance and thereby promote quality medical care to the residents of the islands, provides a rational basis for capping the amount of damages that can be awarded a plaintiff. 5 Indeed, other courts of appeal which have decided due process and equal protection arguments against damage award caps have so held. Lucas v. United States, 807 F.2d 414 (5th Cir.1986); Hoffman v. United States, 767 F.2d 1431 (9th Cir.1985); Continental Insurance Co. v. Illinois Department of Transportation, 709 F.2d 471, 475 (7th Cir.1983). This leaves us with the argument most strongly emphasized by Davis and on which Davis relies virtually to the exclusion of her other two constitutional claims--that the Seventh Amendment precludes any reduction in the award of damages found by a jury. 6
The text of the Seventh Amendment reads as follows:
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of common law.
Davis focuses on the second clause of the Amendment: "no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court ...". She argues that when the district court conformed the jury's verdict to the limits of the Virgin Islands statute, 27 V.I.C. Sec. 166b, the court in effect reexamined the jury's factual determination of the extent of her damages. This reexamination, she claims, violated the Seventh Amendment's explicit terms.
The party's briefs as well as our own independent research reveal very little case law or literature addressing Seventh Amendment challenges similar to Davis'. One court of appeals and one district court have ruled that a cap similar to the one at issue here does not violate the Seventh Amendment. Boyd v. Bulala, 877 F.2d 1191 (4th Cir.1989); Franklin v. Mazda Motor Corp., 704 F.Supp. 1325 (D.Md.1989). The Fourth Circuit, in Boyd, reversed the district court, which had concluded that the Virginia cap on damage recovery in medical malpractice cases was violative of the Seventh Amendment. Boyd v. Bulala, 647 F.Supp. 781 (W.D.Va.1986), reconsideration denied, 672 F.Supp. 915 (W.D.Va.1987), rev'd, 877 F.2d 1191 (4th Cir. 1989). See also, Reuwer v. Hunter, 684 F.Supp. 1340 (W.D.Va.1988) ().
Because Seventh Amendment challenges, such as the one presented here, have not occurred with any frequency, the Supreme Court has had little opportunity to speak to the reexamination issue presented by Davis. Indeed, even in the Supreme Court cases which we discuss below, the Court's treatment of the Seventh Amendment, while relevant to our analysis here, can hardly be deemed dispositive.
In Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 55 S.Ct. 296, 79 L.Ed. 603 (1935), the jury had returned a verdict of $500 for the plaintiff in a personal injury action. The district court ordered a new trial unless the defendant consented to an increase of the damages to the sum of $1,500. The Supreme Court examined the powers of the English courts prior to the adoption of our Seventh Amendment and concluded that English courts did not have the power to increase a jury's...
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