Tenn. Supreme Court ruling ‘belittles’ victims with serious injuries

NASHVILLE — “There’s no justice in today’s ruling.”

Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), chairwoman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, did not mince words in her rebuke of the state Supreme Court’s Feb. 26 ruling.

The court’s 3–2 decision upheld a 2011 state law which placed arbitrary caps on the noneconomic damages that juries may award to victims who were seriously harmed by the actions of someone else.

“The Tennessee Supreme Court’s ruling today belittles the pain and suffering of every victim who has been wrongfully injured and robbed of their chance to live a normal life,” Akbari said. “In the most serious cases, there’s zero justice in a predetermined, one-size-fits-all jury verdict. And there’s no justice in today’s ruling.”

In one of two dissenting opinions, Supreme Court Justice Cornelia A. Clark said the majority opinion overturned 223 years of judicial precedent for the constitutionally protected fact-finding function a jury performs.

The legislature’s law to cap damages “usurps and replaces the jury’s constitutionally protected function of determining damages with an arbitrary ceiling on damages mostly unrelated to the specific facts and circumstances of each litigant’s claim.”

In a separate dissenting opinion, Justice Sharon Lee said the majority’s decision sends a message that the rights of average citizens are not as important as “big corporations and insurance companies.”

“The majority’s decision… tells the citizens of Tennessee that their right to trial by jury and their right to be fairly compensated for noneconomic damages are trumped by the desire to limit the financial exposure of big corporations and insurance companies in civil negligence lawsuits. I will not join in sending this message.”