Tennessee Legislature denies bill that would have capped amount in Nursing home abuse lawsuits
Last week Commercial Appeal columnist Richard Locker wrote about a bill that just died in the Tennessee House of Representatives – a bill meant to limit the amount of damages one could seek from nursing homes in liability lawsuits. The bill was meant to cap two kinds of losses: “noneconomic” (meaning pain, suffering, etc.) and punitive damages. Noneconomic losses would have been capped at $300,000, while punitive damages would have been capped on a sliding scale from $300,000 to $1.5 million.
We have to agree with the AARP argument in this case – if you cap the amounts that these nursing homes can pay out, you are likely to decrease the quality of care they will provide. If they know they can get away with a sub-standard basis of care and only be liable for paying out a limited specified amount, they will probably push the limits on how poorly they can perform before paying out limited monies in liability lawsuits. In fact, the article states that in a study run on states that have capped payouts, the overall quality of health care has declined measurably. On the other hand, states that have enacted quality standards have seen lawsuits decrease.
Because the bill did not move forward as the result of a tied vote, it could come back up as a possibility next year. What do you think Tennessee should do – move to cap payouts, or move to enact quality standards?
