Franklin v. Mazda Motor Corp.

• Decision Date: 02 February 1989
• Docket Number: Civ. No. PN-87-2203.
• Parties: Barbara Lynn FRANKLIN v. MAZDA MOTOR CORPORATION, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

704 F. Supp. 1325

Barbara Lynn FRANKLIN v. MAZDA MOTOR CORPORATION, et al.

Civ. No. PN-87-2203.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

February 2, 1989.

Jerome J. Seidenman, Jerome J. Seidenman, P.A., Baltimore, Md., and Theodore Losin, Morstein & Losin, P.A., Baltimore, Md., for plaintiffs.

Edward S. Digges, Jr. and Michael T. Wharton, Digges, Wharton & Levin, Annapolis, Md., for defendant Mazda Motor Corp.

J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen. of Md., Judson P. Garrett, Jr., Deputy Atty. Gen. of Md., and Robert A. Zarnoch and Kathryn M. Rowe, Asst. Attys. Gen., of Md., Annapolis, Md., for defendant-intervenor State of Md.

OPINION AND ORDER

NIEMEYER, District Judge.

In this case the Court is presented with the question whether the limitation of $350,000 that is imposed by Maryland on personal injury awards for noneconomic damage (such as for pain and suffering) violates the constitutions of the United States and Maryland.

On May 13, 1987, Barbara Lynn Franklin was driving to work on the Capital Beltway around Washington, D.C. (Interstate 495) in her 1982 Mazda automobile when she heard a hissing noise inside her car. As she began to pull her car over onto the highway shoulder, she suddenly felt an extremely hot spray of water and antifreeze liquid on her feet and lower extremities. She reacted by removing her foot from the brake, which caused her to strike another automobile in front of her. As the result of the incident she sustained personal injuries, including second and third degree burns to her feet and ankles which have required skin grafting. She filed this lawsuit against Mazda Motor Corporation ("Mazda") on the basis of strict liability, seeking $750,000 in damages for her medical costs, pain and suffering, permanent injuries, loss of income and loss of use of the car. All but approximately $20,000 are claimed by her as compensation for noneconomic damage such as pain and suffering.

Less than a year before Franklin's injury, Maryland adopted legislation that limited any award for noneconomic damages in a personal injury action to $350,000. Courts Art., § 11-108(b), Md.Code. Confronted with this limitation, she filed a motion for partial summary judgment challenging its constitutionality. At the time she filed her motion, the complaint consisted of one count in strict liability. After Mazda argued that a declaratory judgment claim would be the appropriate procedural vehicle by which to challenge the limitation, she filed a motion to amend her complaint to add a claim for declaratory judgment that the Maryland statute is unconstitutional. That motion to amend, which is unopposed, will be granted, and the motion for summary judgment will be treated as having been filed on that claim also.

Because the constitutionality of a Maryland statute has been raised, the Court granted the motion of the State of Maryland to intervene.

Plaintiff challenges the cap on noneconomic damages on a number of constitutional grounds. She argues that it violates the civil jury trial right guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution. She also argues that the cap violates several sections of the Declaration of Rights of the Maryland Constitution, including Article 23 (jury trial right), Article 20 (trial of facts where they arise), Article 8 (separation of powers), and Article 19 (access to courts). Mazda and the State of Maryland contend, on the other hand, that the adoption of the cap was a permissible legislative function, violating no constitutional provision, and should be applied to limit damages in this case.

The Court has received well written and thoroughly researched memoranda from the parties and heard oral argument on December 16, 1988. It has also studied the further submissions of the parties based on recent decisions reported since argument.

For the reasons that are given hereafter, the Court has concluded that the enactment by Maryland of the cap on noneconomic damages in personal injury actions was a lawful and constitutional exercise of legislative power, both under the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of Maryland, and therefore it will deny plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.

I. THE CAP STATUTE

Section 11-108(b) of the Courts Article, Md.Code, provides that "in any action for damages for personal injury in which the cause of action arises on or after July 1, 1986, an award for noneconomic damages may not exceed $350,000." Noneconomic damages include pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of consortium, or other non-pecuniary injury, but it does not include punitive damages. Id. § 11-108(a).

Section 11-108 was enacted by the Maryland legislature on the recommendations of two government task forces, the Governor's Task Force to Study Liability Insurance (issued Dec. 20, 1985) and the Joint Executive/Legislative Task Force on Medical Malpractice Insurance (issued Dec. 12, 1985). These groups were formed in response to what the Maryland Governor and legislature perceived to be a crisis in the availability of insurance in Maryland. After conducting hearings, meetings, and considerable research, both groups concluded that a cap on noneconomic damages should be enacted by the Maryland legislature. The Governor's Task Force report concluded:

The justification for limiting damages for noneconomic loss, also known as "pain and suffering", lies in the need to reduce this presently uncontrolled element of damages in order to introduce some stability in the civil justice system. It is not recommended that compensation for out-of-pocket losses, known as "special damages" be limited; however, the civil justice system can no longer afford unlimited awards for pain and suffering.

The ceiling on noneconomic damages will help contain awards within realistic limits, reduce the exposure of defendants to unlimited damages for pain and suffering, lead to more settlements, and enable insurance carriers to set more accurate rates because of greater predictability of the size of judgments. The limitation is designed to lend greater stability to the insurance market and make it more attractive to underwriters.

A substantial portion of the verdicts being returned in liability cases are for noneconomic losses. The translation of these losses into dollar amounts is an extremely subjective process as these claims are not easily amenable to accurate, or even approximate, monetary valuation. There is a common belief that these awards are the primary source of overly generous and arbitrary liability claim payments. They vary substantially from person to person, even when applied to similar cases or similar injuries, and can be fabricated with relative ease.

A cap on allowable pain and suffering awards will help reduce the incidence of unrealistically high liability jury awards, yet at the same time protect the right of the injured party to recover the full amount of economic losses, including all lost wages and medical expenses.

The proposals were submitted to the legislature, and after numerous amendments by both houses, the statute in its final form was enacted, effective July 1, 1986, as part of Chapter 639, Laws of 1986.

II. RIPENESS

Mazda and the State of Maryland contend, as a threshold matter, that the issue of the statute's constitutionality is not sufficiently ripe to present a case or controversy and that it will not become ripe until a jury returns a verdict for noneconomic damages greater than $350,000. Plaintiff responds that the question must be resolved now. Because the law, as it now stands, limits Franklin to a claim of $350,000 for noneconomic damages, her counsel's presentation to the jury might well be affected. She questions whether her counsel is entitled to ask a jury for more than the law allows. She also argues that the jury must be instructed in advance as to the cap limit. The Court agrees that the issue is ripe for decision now.

Courts typically rule prior to trial on questions of law that will govern trial. This is particularly true if the jury is to be instructed on the law. The language of the statute here supports the conclusion that the jury should be instructed not to return a verdict for noneconomic damages in excess of $350,000.

Section 11-108(b) states that "in any action for damages for personal injury ... an award for noneconomic damages may not exceed $350,000." Courts Art., § 11-108(b), Md.Code (emphasis added). The use of the term "award" is artful and describes a verdict, in the case of a jury trial, and the findings of fact, in the case of a court trial. This becomes apparent by the use of the term "award" in subsection (b) to describe that which the trier of fact determines. That use of the term "award" is confirmed by Section 11-109(b) which requires that "as part of the verdict in any action for damages for personal injury ... the trier of fact shall itemize the award to reflect the monetary amount intended for ... (5) noneconomic damages." Id. § 11-109(b) (emphasis added). Because the statute requires the jury, as trier of fact, to itemize an award that does not include noneconomic damages greater than $350,000, the jury cannot properly discharge this function without being instructed in advance about the limitation.

Moreover, practical considerations support instructing the jury as to the limitation. Plaintiff's attorney should know in advance of trial what evidence of pain and suffering he can present and whether he can ask the jury to award noneconomic damages in excess of $350,000. As plaintiff has also suggested, there is the possibility that one or more of the jurors will have learned through the media about this much-publicized cap and thereby attempt to decide the case using their personal knowledge of the law. An instruction to the jury would eliminate the possibility of this type of jury confusion. There is no logical reason to keep the jury in ignorance of the cap.

The Court...