Rourke and Blumenthal LLC encourages everyone to read this article which highlights how caps on non-economic damages in Ohio harm innocent victims and protect wrongdoers.
Non-economic damages caps are controversial tort reforms to limit (i.e., “cap”) damages a victim can receive for intangible harms such as severe pain, physical and emotional distress, disfigurement, loss of the enjoyment of life that an injury has caused, including sterility, physical impairment and mental anguish. Unfortunately, these non-economic caps end up hurting the most vulnerable members of society such as women, children, the elderly and individuals who have not worked outside of the home because they do not have substantial economic damages to prove. These victims must then turn to public assistance to help with their ongoing needs.
In the Columbus Dispatch article below, the innocent victim is a young woman who was raped by a pastor when she was 15 years old. The personal injury attorneys at Rourke and Blumenthal LLC strongly believe that juries are in the best position to decide the amount of damages that should be received based on the evidence presented by the parties at trial, not lawmakers completely unfamiliar with the case. Caps on damages are good for the profits of insurance companies, but bad for Ohioans.
The attorney for the plaintiff, John Fitch, called the caps on damages and the outcome of the woman's trial a "moral outrage." He went on to say, “We don't need to protect people who cause or contribute to children being raped. And that's exactly what this statute does.”