COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A case in the Ohio Supreme Court involving a 94-year-old Marine Corps veteran who lost his eye after cataract surgery is challenging a state law that caps damages for pain and suffering in medical malpractice lawsuits.
After losing his eye, John Paganini sued the doctor who performed the procedure, Dr. Gregory Louis, and the Cataract Eye Center of Cleveland in 2022.
A Cuyahoga County jury awarded him $1.48 million for his pain and suffering, but the defendants fought the decision, asking the court to reduce this amount to $500,000. They cited an Ohio law passed in 2003 that caps noneconomic damages – or those for intangible losses – at $500,000 for medical malpractice lawsuits involving permanent physical deformities.
Both a trial court and Eighth District Court of Appeals denied the defendants’ request, saying the cap in Ohio law is unconstitutional because it violates residents’ due process rights. The appeals court called the rule arbitrary and unreasonable and offered an analogy: if a man was run over by a doctor and lost his leg, there would be no limit on the damages, but if he lost his leg in surgery, there would be a cap.
The defendants appealed the lower courts’ decisions to the Ohio Supreme Court, and in May, it agreed to hear the case, which will set a precedent for medical malpractice litigation.
The lawsuit stemmed from Paganini’s cataract surgery, which took place in December 2021. The morning after the procedure, Paganini saw black dots and called his doctor’s office to make an appointment. When he arrived, Paganini reported pain in his eye and foggy vision, and Louis observed some symptoms consistent with endophthalmitis, a severe infection of the eye.
However, Louis did not suspect Paganini had the condition at the time because his symptoms were common among patients after cataract surgery, according to court records. Therefore, Louis sent him home with a different diagnosis and did not refer him to a specialist, which he would have done if he suspected he had endophthalmitis.
A couple of days later, still experiencing eye pain, Paganini saw a specialist who diagnosed him with acute endophthalmitis. Despite undergoing surgery to treat the infection a short time later, the condition ultimately led to the loss of his eye.
Although the Ohio Supreme Court has yet to schedule oral arguments, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and a group of organizations including the Ohio Hospital Association and Ohio State Medical Association, filed briefs with the high court in August that argued for the state law.
Yost pointed to a “significant health care crisis” that Ohio faced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, largely due to medical malpractice litigation and “out of control noneconomic damage awards.” During that crisis, he said more than half the state’s medical liability insurance carriers left, and physicians and hospitals faced significant increases in insurance premiums.
He stated the 2003 law helped confront this crisis and pointed out that the law does not limit damages that represent economic losses, such as hospital bills, in any way.
The appeals court disagreed with this argument in its ruling, stating the legislature has failed to demonstrate how capping noneconomic damages for a small group of highly injured people will have any impact on malpractice insurance rates.
