Peter Ladd

Our son Peter is now four years old. He has cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder and a gastrotomy tube in his stomach because of feeding difficulties. He is still unable to talk, sit, stand, or hold onto objects. He needs adaptive equipment including very expensive wheelchairs, walkers and standers. For tube feeding, Peter requires special medical equipment and a nutritional supplement that costs over $200/month.

We believe that his birth injuries were caused by the negligence of the two doctors who were involved in his delivery. Obvious warning signs were ignored and, as a result, Peter has a lifelong disability.

Doctors call for capping non-economic or "pain and suffering" damages. They say that $250,000 is enough to compensate Peter for a lifetime of limited abilities and extraordinary challenges. They say that a cap is fair because injured patients will still be paid for economic losses like medical expenses.

Well, capping non-economic losses is severely limiting and discriminatory to children (as well as to many women and the elderly) because children are not wage earners.

Non-economic losses are not just about transient or recurrent pain and suffering. They are about compensation for permanent disability and how disability impacts a person's quality of life. And they are about accountability for negligence.

Everyone needs to pay attention to what caps really mean to the thousands of people out there who are going to be the victims of medical error in the years ahead. If they could visit our home and see what life after malpractice is really like they would never accept a future in which their recovery for "pain and suffering" would be limited to $250,000.

We need to continue to make negligent doctors accountable for their actions. Hospitals and doctors must enact the kinds of system reforms that have been shown to prevent medical error. 5% of doctors nationwide commit over half of all malpractice. Why are they still practicing?