Award Limit Upheld in ‘Patient-Dumping’ Case

California’s $250,000 limit on pain and suffering damages for medical malpractice victims applies to lawsuits by patients who are denied care in violation of a federal “patient-dumping” law, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The ruling by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, in the case of a girl who died after being transferred from one hospital to another, rejected the reasoning of a federal judge who decided the same issue in a different case in October.

Because the central issue is the meaning of a state law, the state court’s interpretation should take precedence, said Timothy Coates, a lawyer for Los Angeles County, whose hospital transferred the girl.

The ruling could be appealed to the state Supreme Court. Lawyers for the girl’s mother, who sued the county, could not be reached for comment.

The state law, passed in 1975, was one of several laws intended to cut the price of malpractice insurance for doctors. It limited damages for pain, suffering and emotional distress to $250,000 in malpractice cases. It did not limit damages for financial losses.

The 1986 federal law, intended to curb “dumping” of patients unable to pay their bills, sets standards for hospital emergency rooms in medical screening and stabilizing treatment, and restricts transfer of a patient whose condition has not stabilized. The law allows damage suits according to each state’s rules.

The case involves the death of Mychelle Barris, who was taken to the county’s Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center in May 1993 with a temperature of 106.6, a high pulse rate and other symptoms. She suffered a seizure 2 1/2 hours later. A staff physician, Trach Phoung Dang, said he believed she had a viral infection; in fact, the court said, she was suffering from septicemia, a life-threatening bacterial infection that required antibiotics.

Dang gave her medication and recommended blood work, which he wanted to perform. Because the girl was covered by a Kaiser health plan, he called a doctor identified by the court only as Thompson at Kaiser Permanente Hospital. Thompson told him the blood work would be done at Kaiser.

Mychelle was driven to Kaiser by ambulance about 3 1/2 hours after her arrival. Dang said he thought her condition had stabilized. She suffered a fatal cardiac arrest soon after reaching the hospital.

A jury found both doctors negligent, with Dang 75% at fault, and also found that the county had violated the federal law by failing to stabilize Mychelle before her transfer. Jurors awarded the girl’s parents $3,000 in economic damages and $1.35 million in noneconomic damages, for loss of the child’s love and companionship.

Superior Court Judge Victoria Chavez reduced the noneconomic damages to $250,000, relying on the state law, and was upheld by the appeals court in a 3-0 ruling.