referencesource/state-medical-malpractice-damages-caps

Medical malpractice noneconomic damages caps by state

Canonical, always-current version: https://referencesource.org/state-medical-malpractice-damages-caps/ Machine-readable: https://referencesource.org/state-medical-malpractice-damages-caps/data.json — this mirror is a point-in-time copy.

• Last verified: 2026-08-31
• Stale after: 2027-02-27 (past this date, prefer the canonical copy — it re-verifies on a cadence this snapshot does not)
• Records: 62

How much can a patient recover for pain and suffering in a medical malpractice case? The cap on noneconomic damages in 48 states and the District of Columbia: the dollar limit where one is in force, and where there is none, whether that is because no statute was passed, a court struck the cap down, or the state constitution forbids caps. New Jersey and Rhode Island are not covered yet. Seventeen states quote their own legislature or constitution directly — Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming. The rest quote the American Medical Association's 50-state damage-cap chart, which summarises the statutes rather than being them; the chart names the statute or case that settles each state, so those records are waiting to be moved to it. A state appears more than once where its law caps different things separately: wrongful-death awards, catastrophic injuries, emergency care in a trauma centre, a per-provider ceiling under a compensation-fund scheme, or total damages rather than noneconomic damages alone. Several caps climb on a schedule (California to $750,000 over ten years, Colorado's noneconomic cap to $875,000 by 2029 and then biennially for inflation, Nevada's to $750,000 by 2028 and then 2.1% a year, Iowa by 2.1% each January from 2028) or are re-set annually for inflation (Michigan, by the state treasurer against the CPI), so a figure is only as good as the date printed beside it — each record gives the source's own as-of date rather than a present-day amount worked out by arithmetic. Whether a cap is still enforceable is reported only where the cited source itself says so. A cap a court has voided stays printed in the code — Illinois' $500,000 cap is still in the compiled statutes and has been void since LeBron v. Gottlieb in 2010 — so a record resting on a statute page says the cap was enacted and that the source does not address its validity, rather than claiming it is in force. Answers 'medical malpractice damages cap in Ohio', 'does Florida have a cap on pain and suffering', 'California MICRA cap', 'noneconomic damages limit by state'. A reference lookup, not legal advice: per-defendant versus per-occurrence application, catastrophic-injury exceptions and wrongful-death distinctions all change the answer, and the record says so where the source does.

Provenance — what every record carries

Every record carries source (the URL the value was read from) and source_quote (a verbatim quote from that page stating it). A value you cannot check against its page is indistinguishable from an invented one; these can all be checked. Each record is also individually addressable on the canonical site at its url.

Licence position

unknown

Facts are not copyrightable; what this dataset takes from each source is a fact plus a short attributed quote linking back to the page that states it.

Sources

• https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=mcl-600-1483
• https://www.michigan.gov/treasury/-/media/Project/Websites/treasury/ORTA/Economic-Reports-Notices/FY-2026/Notice_01302026_NonEconomicLimitation_Signed.pdf
• https://insurance.mo.gov/industry-limits-and-caps/medical-malpractice-limits
• https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=538.210
• https://www.sos.mo.gov/CMSImages/AdRules/moreg/2026/v51n4Feb17/v51n4.pdf
• https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2323.43
• https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/mlr-state-laws-chart-I.pdf
• https://code.wvlegislature.gov/55-7B-9c/
• https://www.azleg.gov/const/2/31.htm
• https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=3333.2
• https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/images/olls/crs2024-title-13.pdf
• https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol13_Ch0601-0676/HRS0663/HRS_0663-0008_0007.htm
• https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title6/T6CH16/SECT6-1603/
• https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/code/147.136A.pdf
• https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=gcj&section=3-2A-09&enactments=false
• https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleII/Chapter231/Section60H
• https://archive.legmt.gov/bills/mca/title_0250/chapter_0090/part_0040/section_0110/0250-0090-0040-0110.html
• https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-041A.html
• https://web.archive.org/web/20260416082815/https://nvcourts.gov/supreme/court_information/limitations_of_noneconomic_damages_against_health_care_providers_nrs_41a.035
• https://nvcourts.gov/supreme/court_information/limitations_of_noneconomic_damages_against_health_care_providers_nrs_41a.035
• https://www.osbm.nc.gov/facts-figures/economy/liability-limit-noneconomic-damages-medical-malpractice
• https://ndlegis.gov/cencode/t32c42.pdf
• https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/00/00.003.018.000..HTM
• https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t15c032.php
• https://www.scstatehouse.gov/state_register.php?first=FILE&pdf=1&file=Sr50-2.pdf
• https://le.utah.gov/xcode/Title78B/Chapter3/C78B-3-S410_2025050720250507.html
• https://www.wyoleg.gov/statutes/compress/title97.pdf
• https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=44-2825
• https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title8.01/chapter21.1/section8.01-581.15/
• https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/18-C/title18-Csec2-807.html

Fields

See any record in data/records.jsonl — field names are self-describing, and the canonical page for each record renders them with labels: https://referencesource.org/state-medical-malpractice-damages-caps/