Only two other states, Kansas and Montana, have a cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases as low as California's.
[10] The perceived success of MICRA in helping California healthcare providers stay financially solvent in turn inspired similar tort reform initiatives in other states.
Like MICRA, Question 3 set a maximum schedule for attorney's fees, and capped noneconomic damages at a slightly higher number, $350,000.
To directly counter KODIN, the Nevada plaintiffs' bar put Questions 4 and 5 on the same ballot, and both 4 and 5 were defeated.
[11][12] There is an argument that government regulation and restriction on jury awards in medical malpractice suits is detrimental to the public and primarily protects insurance companies.
[18] California Proposition 46 would have raised the MICRA cap to current inflation standards (approximately $1.1 million), with future annual adjustments.
Eight years after MICRA’s enactment, the first case decided by the California Supreme Court was American Bank & Trust v. Community Hospital, 33 Cal.
Immediately after this decision, the health care providers petitioned for rehearing, which was granted — a rare occasion.
[21] In 2019, a new coalition (including Consumer Watchdog and trial lawyers Nicholas Rowley and James Harrison[22][23]) filed paperwork for a new "Fairness for Injured Patients Act" ballot initiative, which would have removed MICRA's cap on noneconomic damages.
[25] In April 2022, Assemblymember Eloise Gomez Reyes and State Senator Tom Umberg worked together to draft AB 35, a legislative compromise on MICRA reform.
[27] The bill was endorsed by both the Consumer Attorneys of California and Californians Allied for Patient Protection, two groups who opposed each other in the debate over Proposition 46.
[28] It was also endorsed by the coalition behind the Fairness for Injured Patients Act, who withdrew their initiative from the ballot one week after the compromise passed both houses of the state legislature.
[29] Reporter Dan Walters states that this compromise was reached as a result of fatigue on both sides from an almost five decade long battle over this issue, and fear on both sides that the result of a qualified ballot initiative would have had the voters immutably deciding the issue.