Ballot initiative to raise MICRA postponed until 2022

Proponents of a ballot initiative to change California's cap on non-economic medical negligence damages said Thursday there were delaying their effort until 2022.

A news release from the group Consumer Watchdog said they would no longer seek to get the Fairness for Injured Patients Act on the 2020 ballot due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Voters are overwhelmed with trying to keep their families safe and deal with the economic impacts of COVID-19," Scott Olson, a bill supporter who cares for his disabled adult son, said in the release. "It will be more productive to have this conversation when everything stabilizes."

Working with personal injury plaintiffs' attorney Nicholas C. Rowley, the group submitted the initiative to the Secretary of State's office in September. The attorney with Carpenter Zuckerman & Rowley in Beverly Hills also filed a legal challenge to the law in Los Angeles County Superior Court in April.

The California Medical Association and an affiliated group, Californians Allied for Patient Protection, have argued changing the law would increase malpractice insurance rates and drive up the price of health care.

Rowley has been an outspoken proponent of what he sees as the unfairness of the law. He provided a confrontational early kickoff to the campaign with an appearance at the Consumer Attorneys of California's annual conference in San Francisco in November. The group has advocated changing the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act, the 1975 state law that limits non-economic damages in these cases to $250,000. But the group's officials said they had no role in the current effort.

The initiative calls for indexing the cap to inflation, which would immediately raise it to nearly $1.2 million, with further increases to follow. Proponents say the current amount frequently leaves people who were injured through no fault of their own with compensation that is inadequate to provide longterm care.

Supporters had been hoping to take advantage of what they expected to be strong Democratic turnout in the November general election. According to the news release, the proponents are still planning on turning in at least 988,000 signatures to the Secretary of State's office by mid-May to qualify for the 2022 ballot.

-- Malcolm Maclachlan